In this Stanley Cup Final, Pekka Rinne has had to fish roughly one of every four pucks he's faced in Pittsburgh out of his net: 11 goals on 45 shots.
In this Game 5, that ratio was reduced to one in three pucks: 3 goals on 9 shots.
So it makes perfect sense, in that isolated context, that Peter Laviolette pulled his franchise goaltender after a mere period of the Penguins' eventual 6-0 pounding of his Predators. He couldn't have liked any of what he was seeing, and he couldn't have hurt anything by making a change.
Right?
Well, not necessarily, at least not from this view.
Here's one thing that doesn't make sense: If the coach wants to make a change to get his team going, that's fine. In November. Or even in the first couple rounds of playoffs. But this was the pivotal game to this point of the Final. This was the game of everyone's lives, certainly on his side of the ice. Motivation, or even focus, never should be mentioned, much less acted upon.
Here's another thing that doesn't make sense: Rinne wasn't great, but he wasn't awful. And the coach expressed almost exactly that same sentiment.
"I don't think they were bad goals, necessarily," Laviolette said. "One of them, he was completely screened. There's coverage that's missed after that. We'll look to clean that up and be better next game."
Rinne was, indeed, badly screened on Justin Schultz's opening goal, on an early power play:
That's Austin Watson of Nashville up there in the low slot, dropping to all fours in front of Rinne like he's about to begin barking. The puck actually zips through both his legs and Rinne's without the latter ever having caught a glimpse.
“I mean, guys tried to do everything right," Rinne said. "Watty tried to block the shot, and it just came through. After that, if you don’t pick it up, it’s too late to react.”
Next came Bryan Rust's beauty of a backhander ...
... that kissed the far corner and caromed sweetly into the net, a goal that few would begrudge. Far more egregious was Matt Irwin, a defenseman, flat-out falling asleep in the neutral zone as Rust blows right by for a clear lane to the Nashville hashes. Hence, Laviolette's remark about 'coverage.'
Finally for Rinne came this rather odd goal by Malkin ...
... which is a wonderful finish under any circumstance, but it's all the more impressive in that the pass from Phil Kessel arrives like a rolling tire. Malkin somehow still hammers it, and with precision. Also, that Nashville guy backing off Kessel as if he's got rabies is Viktor Arvidsson. He's a forward, which is why you see him raising his hand in frustration right after the lamp gets lit.
Could Rinne have made the saves on Rust and Malkin?
No question.
Should he have made them, given the magnitude of the event?
Arguably.
But here's the last thing that doesn't make sense about Laviolette switching from Rinne to 22-year-old Juuse Saros after the first intermission: Should the Predators hold serve Sunday night in Nashville and tie the series again, Rinne now has to drag all this same baggage back onto the ice at PPG Paints Arena. Rather than being afforded the chance to work out those demons in this Game 5.
Laviolette was asked afterward about Rinne, his Pittsburgh problem and the decision to pull him. And the coach, like most of his defensemen on this night, was a minus-3 in responding.
"I know we've got to be better in front of him," Laviolette said in his only real reference to Rinne. "With regard to Pekka, our guys have a tremendous amount of confidence in him. We've just got to do a better job in front of him."
That was a common theme through the visitors' room, just as it was after Rinne's eight goals allowed in Games 1 and 2.
“We’ve got to be better for our goaltender, no question," Mike Fisher, the captain, said. "We know we have to be a lot better than that. They were coming. They were hungry. And we have to return the favor in a few nights."
"You move forward here. You learn from it," James Neal said. "We'll be a lot better in our home rink. We have to be. We'll be fine."
Rinne sounded many of the same notes as after the first trip here.
“This wasn't our night," he said. "But you still remind yourself that you’re in the Final. And as long as there’s life, there’s hope.”
Can't help but wonder, though, if that hope quotient wouldn't be higher if he hadn't spent two-thirds of his evening at the end of the bench.
MATT SUNDAY GALLERY
