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Pekka Rinne finding consistency at the right time for Predators

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The Predators have sparked a hockey culture in Nashville, and Pierre McGuire says their stars can keep the team among hockey's best.

PITTSBURGH -- As the longest-tenured member of the Nashville Predators roster, the team’s run to the 2017 Stanley Cup Final has to be extra special for starting goaltender Pekka Rinne.

He has been one of the core players in the organization for more than a decade and been through all of the recent postseason disappointments as the team was unable to climb the hurdle that was the second-round of the playoffs until this season.
“Before each season, you know, when you’re a professional hockey player, you dream about this situation,” said Rinne on Sunday afternoon during the Stanley Cup Final media day.

“Every season my goal is to win the Stanley Cup, in all honesty. You come to training camp, you prepare yourself all summer, and now finally we are in this situation. I always felt that one day we would be in this situation.”

One of the biggest reasons the Predators are in this situation has been because of Rinne and his play in net.

Nashville’s defense has obviously gotten a significant portion of the headlines this postseason, and for very good reason. It is the NHL’s best group, has played exceptionally well, and as Rinne himself said on Sunday is “the backbone of the team.”

But goaltending is still the one position that can make-or-break a postseason run and flip everything upside down. A hot goalie can lift an underdog and sink a favorite in any given series. As the last line of defense, Rinne has been a rock for the Predators and been able to take his play to an entirely different level this postseason.

The biggest change: Just finding some consistency to his game.

Even though Rinne’s overall numbers for the season were strong (his .918 save percentage was above the league average) they fluctuated wildly on a month-by-month basis.

It looked a little something like this: .906, .949, .875, .933, .888, .923, .960 (three games).

After finishing the last two months on a high note, Rinne has continued that strong play into the postseason and posted a save percentage of .930 or better in 12 of his first 16 playoff games. Combine that with a defense that has a top-four like Nashville’s and it has made them the toughest team to score against this postseason.

Entering the Final the Predators are allowing just 1.81 goals per game. The only team that allowed fewer goals during in one playoff run during the salary cap era was the 2011-12 Los Angeles Kings (1.50).

“It’s hard to explain,” said Rinne on Sunday when asked about what changed in his play.

“I think we started off really well against Chicago, then you gain some confidence, and personally I was playing well. Once that ball starts rolling you feel better and better and things start to go your way. I feel the biggest thing is as a team, for a long time in the regular season we were trying to find consistency and at times we didn’t do a good job. I feel like this postseason we’ve been really consistent and solid and playing really good hockey for 16 games now.”

The Predators were the 16th out of 16 teams to clinch a playoff spot this year and had to begin their Stanley Cup Final run with a first-round matchup against their long-time arch nemesis, the Chicago Blackhawks. Not only a team that entered the playoffs as the No. 1 seed in the Western Conference and was viewed as the favorite to reach the Stanley Cup Final, but also a team that had eliminated Rinne and the Predators twice in the past seven years.

Nashville was not only able to conquer that hurdle, it ended the series in a clean four-game sweep. It set the stage for the Predators to break through and advance beyond the second-round for the first time in franchise history.

“I feel like any year the hardest thing is to get past the first two rounds,” said Rinne.

“You still have so many teams at that point. Once you get past those rounds, you really start feeling confident and things are going your way. It is a very powerful feeling when 23 guys come together. It was something against Chicago, that was my third time playing against that team and first time winning against them, it was almost like a hurdle we had to get over and we did that. It was a big win for the organization as well.”

Now the organization has chance to do something even bigger over the next two weeks.

In recent years as Rinne has gotten older his play has started to decline a bit from where it was earlier in his career, almost to the point where he was viewed as a question mark or perhaps even the weak link on the roster. That has not been the case this postseason, and it is one of the biggest reasons the team has this opportunity in front of it.