And the 2018 Vezina Trophy goes to Pekka Rinne.
Like many of us expected and all of us hoped, Pekka Rinne won his first ever Vezina Trophy tonight at the NHL Awards event in Las Vegas. A four-time finalist for the award, Rinne beat out Andre Vasilevskiy and Connor Hellebuyck for the win.
Here was the final vote:
Vezina Trophy voting breakdown (voted on by NHL GMs) pic.twitter.com/kcC1QDIOuG
— Sean Leahy (@Sean_Leahy) June 21, 2018
Both Vasililevskiy and Hellebuyck had great seasons—and obviously better postseasons— but Rinne was better over the course the regular season, which is how the Vezina is judged.
Pekkka Rinne deserved this win for so many reasons. Rachel has a nice review of Rinne’s season over here (check out that letter grade 👀) and I wrote about how Rinne was a huge part of what worked for the Preds this season. But in case you need a reminder of how dominant Rinne was, here you go:
According to Corsica Hockey and hockey-reference.com, among goalies with at least 1500 even strength minutes this season, Rinne finished:
- 1st in save percentage (.938)
- 2nd in goals saved above average (19.4)
- 5th in high danger save percentage (.842)
- 4th in medium danger save percentage (.938)
- 3rd in wins (42)
- t-1st in shutouts (8)
- 3rd in quality start percentage (.678)/
Rinne has already solidified himself as the Predators all-time best goaltender, so this really is just one more accolade to add to the list, but I’ll be damned if I’m not ecstatic that he actually won it.
No one more deserves this trophy than Rinne.