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Pekka Rinne left off Team Finland's Olympic roster

By Dirk Hoag

This comes from Jeff Marek of CBC's Hockey Night in Canada:

Finland_goalies_medium

Nashville's Pekka Rinne was definitely up against some stiff competition, which reflects just how far Finnish goaltending has come in the last 10-15 years. Recall that as recently as the 1998-99 season, there were no Finn goaltenders in the NHL, and now there are 7, some of them among the league's best.

GP MIN W L
GA GAA SA SV SV% SO
2009 - Miikka Kiprusoff 34 1996 19 10 74 2.22 1007 933 .927 3

GP MIN W L
GA GAA SA SV SV% SO
2009 - Niklas Backstrom 33 1979 18 12 82 2.49 913 831 .910 1

GP MIN W L
GA GAA SA SV SV% SO
2009 - Antero Niittymaki 18 1048 7 5 43 2.46 530 487 .919 0

Those all compare favorably to what Rinne has done this season:

Pekka Rinne

#35 / Goalie / Nashville Predators

6-5

206

Nov 03, 1982

GP MIN W L
GA GAA SA SV SV% SO
2009 - Pekka Rinne 27 1472 15 7 69 2.81 720 651 .904 2

Pekka's been good, but certainly not great this season for the Predators, and "great" is what's required these days to make the Olympic squad. Perhaps this might serve as motivation over the rest of this season?