If there’s one thing Nashville goaltender Pekka Rinne loves, it’s playing in a shootout.
Marcel Goc scored the only goal in the shootout with Rinne stopping Jonathan Toews and Patrick Kane and the Predators rallied from a two-goal deficit after two periods to beat the Chicago Blackhawks 3-2 Saturday night.
Nashville forward Jerred Smithson said the Blackhawks outworked and outplayed the Predators through the first two periods.
“If it wasn’t for Pekka there, it very easily could have been 6-nothing going into the third,” Smithson said.
Rinne wound up stopping 31 shots, and the goalie won his fifth shootout this season to improve to 16-7 for his career.
“The crowd was going crazy. It was such a good atmosphere going into overtime and the shootout,” Rinne said. “This time Goc made a big goal in the shootout, and I was able to stop those shooters. Sometimes, I don’t know, you just have to trust your instincts, and I enjoy those situations.”