Not three minutes of Game 3 of the Stanley Cup Final had elapsed, and Pekka Rinne's hole was dug that much deeper. Jake Guentzel had rammed home a rebound, and the Penguins had rung up their ninth goal on 38 shots against the Predators' franchise goaltender.
What could have been swirling behind that mask at that point?
"I think these first couple games, the beginning of the game, it's been a battle," Rinne would say later. "I think at those moments, you just mentally try to erase your mind, just focus on the next save, remind yourself that you're still in the Final. Life is pretty good."
It's got to look a whole lot better now. Rinne stopped 27 of 28 shots in Nashville's 5-1 romp to finally, finally show up in this series and to reclaim some dignity. He's 34, and he's been respected throughout his decade-long NHL career, but he'd never faced anything approaching the criticism, scrutiny and outright embarrassment that followed Games 1 and 2.
Strikingly, he semi-credited the Penguins for resurrecting his playoff.
"I think the second period helped me," Rinne said of a wild 20 minutes in which Nashville outshot the Penguins, 16-13, but Rinne went undented. "I mean, I was able to see the puck pretty good, make a couple big saves. They started to shoot the puck little bit more. I feel like, for the first three games now, they haven't shot the puck too much. They try to make a lot of plays across the crease, thing like that. Obviously, games like that, it can make things a little bit difficult. But this was a great effort tonight, a great team win."
In particular, Rinne found confidence, he'd attest, through these two saves:
