Here are some hard numbers to support what Rinne means to his team in terms of goal differential.

It is a team sport, but it would be hard to believe after watching Rinne every game that he is not a big influence on the outcome.

The chart below shows the games Rinne has played this year and how many were decided by one goal or how many were decided by more. This shows in Rinne's 59 games played so far that 28 games were decided by 1 goal (represented by yellow).

Of the games decided by 2 goals, 7 of these were including an empty netter (EN) (in orange). Therefore, if the goalie was not pulled for the extra attacker, Rinne would have likely played in 35 games decided by one goal. Two games in purple were decide by special teams play of the opposing team.

Of the 59 games Rinne only had 7 outright losses in blue (I did not look to see how this coincided with his injuries). The remaining white cells represent the remaining 15 games that Nashville won outright by more than 1 point (non EN).

Therefore 30 of Nashville's points likely reflects scoring deciding the outcome of the games when Rinne played, whereas 38 points can be considered games where Rinne's goaltending was likely the deciding factor. This reflects the importance of Rinne to his team, and why he should be a Hart Trophy candidate.

Is there a goal scorer that has contributed enough game winning goals or large enough quantity of points (vs the rest of their team), to make a better case than the contributions of Pekka Rinne to the Nashville Predators this year?

Thanks to Chris Burton for converting and linking my excel file.

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