Nash never stopped scoring from there. He hit 20 goals in December, made it 30 in late January and earned his 40th in game No. 76 in March. Along the way, he made some history, suiting up in the All-Star Game to become the first teenager to be so honored by the league in 12 seasons.
And then, in a grand finale, Nash scored his 41st goal of the season in the last game of the campaign, tallying in a win vs. Detroit. That allowed him to tie for the league lead in goals and earn a share of the Maurice "Rocket" Richard Trophy. In doing so, he became the youngest player to lead the NHL in goals in a season.
Yes, the story of the 2003-04 campaign for the Blue Jackets was the emergence of the team's first bona fide homegrown star. Nash gave Blue Jackets fans reason for hope with his sensational season, though the team still didn't compete for a playoff bid, going 25-48-8-4 to place fourth in the Central Division and second-from-last in the Western Conference with 62 points. Midway through the season, with the team boasting just nine wins in the first 37 games, general manager Doug MacLean stepped down from the head coaching job and turned the keys over to Gerard Gallant for the rest of the season.
No matter who was in charge, though, and despite Nash's individual brilliance, the Blue Jackets just couldn't put the puck in the net consistently enough to win, as Columbus placed 29th in the league in scoring with 177 goals. Just two players topped 40 points, with Nash finishing with 57 while David Vyborny added 22 goals and 31 assists for 53 points.
Scoring woes could have been forecasted a bit, as the team's leading scorer for two years running, Ray Whitney, left for Detroit in free agency while Mike Sillinger was traded to Dallas for defensive help in the form of Darryl Sydor. Forwards Todd Marchant and Trevor Letowski were added in free agency, Manny Malhotra was claimed off waivers in November, and the team saw two young forwards drafted that summer in Nikolai Zherdev and Dan Fritsche make the roster.
Fritsche was a unique story in his own right, as he made the team out of training camp at age 18. He also garnered a ton of local interest, as the Parma, Ohio, native became the first player from the Buckeye State drafted by the team when he was taken in the second round of the 2003 draft.
Despite those additions, the goals just didn't come. Zherdev was added to the mix and like Nash showed promise, finishing with a 13-21-34 line in 57 games to tie for third on the team in scoring with Marchant (nine goals, 25 assists), while Letowski added 15-17-32. Largely because of injuries, Sanderson and Cassels couldn't quite recapture the magic of the year before when they each topped 60 points, as Sanderson finished with 13 goals and 29 points while Cassels had six goals and 26 points.
Defensively, new captain Luke Richardson and free agent acquisition Anders Eriksson led the way, but the Blue Jackets finished 24th in the league in goals allowed. In net, one year after playing in an NHL-best 77 games, Marc Denis again shouldered the load, playing in 66 games and having his best season in union blue with a 2.56 GAA and .918 save percentage.
The team also introduced something new -- a third jersey for the first time. The union blue sweater, which debuted during a 3-2 win at home Oct. 13 vs. Vancouver, featured black accents and a new center crest logo, the state of Ohio's pennant flag wrapping around a silver star.
