Pekka Rinne NASHVILLE, TN – JUNE 03: Pekka Rinne #35 of the Nashville Predators (L) celebrates with teammates after defeating the Pittsburgh Penguins 5-1 in Game Three of the 2017 NHL Stanley Cup Final at the Bridgestone Arena on June 3, 2017 in Nashville, Tennessee. (Photo by Frederick Breedon/Getty Images)

On May 31, this writer took some time to write about how poorly Pekka Rinne played in the first two games of the Stanley Cup Final and how sitting him for Juuse Saros might make sense. Rinne has always been a better goaltender at Bridgestone Arena than away from it, but his play in Games 3 and 4 erased all memory of what happened in Pittsburgh. He’s now back in Conn Smythe Trophy form, and the Predators are right back in the series.

At 1-1, Rinne stoned Jake Guentzel when the Penguins had a chance to take the lead:

When it was 2-1, Sidney Crosby and Guentzel both had glorious chances to tie the game, but then Rinne did this:

After only making 26 of 34 saves in the games in Pittsburgh, Rinne stopped all but two at Bridgestone Arena, including acrobatic saves like the sequence above, and everything about his play seems calmer and more confident once back in more comfortable surroundings. While Rinne leaves Nashville having given up only two goals in the two games, Matt Murray gave up eight on 58 shots. He wasn’t making the crazy saves he was making in Pittsburgh, and there was even a little subtle scuttlebutt that maybe the Penguins should go back to Marc-Andre Fleury. With Rinne’s heroics, the Preds moved to 9-1 at home this postseason and 9-0 when leading after two periods. The Penguins are now 0-7 this postseason when trailing after two, and for the first time in Matt Murray’s postseason career, he’s lost back-to-back postseason games. That’s thanks in large part to what his opposite number was doing.

Rinne got the loudest cheer when the starting lineups were introduced before Game 3, and it wasn’t just because Predators fans wanted to give their goalie a much needed confidence boost. In November of 2011, the then-29-year-old Rinne signed a seven-year, $49-million contract. He was one of the three major building blocks that David Poile wanted to build around (along with former defensemen Ryan Suter and Shea Weber), but in the summer after that season ended, Suter bolted for Minnesota and Weber signed a ridiculous offer sheet from the Philadelphia Flyers. The Preds matched that, but later traded him for P.K. Subban. Rinne outlasted each of those two in Nashville, and made the Cup before either of those two former building blocks did in their new homes. Rinne was also drafted by the Preds in 2004 and played his first game with the team in 2005, making him the longest-tenured Predator player.

To Predators fans, they felt that the Pekka performances in Pittsburgh were nothing more than a passing phase. They had the evidence to back it up, too, from the first three rounds of the postseason. Once back in Nashville, the goalie that remained from the troika that would have been ended up finding himself again, and his team found their way again too. For Predators fans, they wanted nothing more than to see the longest-tenured Pred backstop them back in the Cup Final, and he did just that and then some.

As NBC broadcaster Mike “Doc” Emrick said to end Game 4, Rinne came to Nashville as a question mark and left it as an exclamation point. But in order for the Predators to win this series, Rinne will have to channel his Conn Smythe favorite and home play in Pittsburgh once for the Preds to lift the Cup. Suddenly though, there isn’t much doubt as to whether he can pull that off.

All he has to do now is pull it off.

About Matt Lichtenstadter

Recent Maryland graduate. I've written for many sites including World Soccer Talk, GianlucaDiMarzio.com, Testudo Times, Yahoo's Puck Daddy Blog and more. Houndstooth is still cool, at least to me. Follow me @MattsMusings1 on Twitter, e-mail me about life and potential jobs at matthewaaron9 at Yahoo dot com.