Looking at the Five Best Individual Seasons in Nashville Predators History
By Chad Minton
Rinne Begins to Take the NHL by Storm in 2010
It was Pekka Rinne‘s third full season in the NHL, and everyone around the league was starting to realize this young, Finnish goalie was one to be reckoned with and the cornerstone of the Nashville Predators becoming a superb playoff contender.
Now this decision was really difficult because Rinne has two years you can say belong on this list, and you’re probably thinking I’m insane right now for not choosing his 2018 Vezina Trophy season. But hear me out.
Quality Starts basically weight against the average save percentage for that year, meaning almost always Rinne was better than the league average in save percentage in 2010-11. It’s an important metric for me.
Rinne, despite his 22 regulation losses in 2010-11, put up his personal bests in save percentage (.930) and GAA (2.12) while also recording six shutouts and posting 43 Quality Starts. He also came up 2nd in the Vezina voting of 2011, getting six first place votes and coming up 20 votes shy of the winner Tim Thomas.
Now although that particular season the Nashville Predators weren’t the worst team in producing offense, they certainly were in the bottom half at 21st. Also, they didn’t take advantage on the power play ranking 26th, which being better in those two areas would’ve improved Rinne’s win-loss record.
Going to Rinne’s Vezina Trophy season of 2017-18, he started five fewer games while representing a President’s Trophy winning team. Not to take anything away from Rinne’s Vezina campaign which was epic, but the team around him was so much better than Rinne’s team in 2010-11.
Rinne did post eight shutouts (career high) in 2017-18, but his GAA at 2.31 was slightly higher than 2010-11, but of course still nothing to scoff at.
Really, you can’t go wrong with choosing either one, but I’m going with 2010-11 as being slightly more impressive. Unfortunately, Rinne did struggle mightily in both playoff campaigns of those years, but we’re doing this list based primarily on regular season performances.