Rinne evolved from long-shot NHL prospect to Hockey Hall of Famer

The 2026 Hockey Hall of Fame induction is Nov. 9. This year's class includes Carey Price, Pekka Rinne, Patrice Bergeron, Keith Tkachuk and Cindy Curley in the Player category, and Brian Burke in the Builder category. Here, NHL.com senior writer Dan Rosen profiles Rinne.

Pekka Rinne was on a path to becoming one of the best adult rec hockey goalies in Finland when he was 17 years old.

Now Rinne, who turned 44 on Tuesday, is getting ready to be inducted into the Hockey Hall of Fame.

Rinne is the long-shot eighth-round pick from the 2004 NHL Draft, the 258th selection, who turned into one of the best to play the position, currently tied for fifth in save percentage (.917), tied for seventh in goals-against average (2.43), 16th in shutouts (60) and tied for 22nd in wins (369) among goalies who have played at least 500 regular-season games.

"My story is not the obvious one," Rinne told NHL.com.

Rinne's rise began with a reality check pep talk from Harri Hautamaki, his coach when he was a teenager growing up in Kempele, Finland, about 15 minutes from Oulu.

"I played on a tiny little team called Kiekko-Laser; that's where Harri coached me," Rinne said. "I ended up having two really good years with Harri, but we basically played in a second-division Finnish junior program, so it was very local games. We didn't travel a lot."

Hautamaki, as Rinne recalled, saw more in the goalie than the goalie saw in himself.

"After the second season he comes up to me and sits me down and he's like, 'Pekka, I'm never going to coach you again,'" Rinne said. "I'm a young guy so I'm like, 'Did I do something wrong?' He said, 'You shouldn't be playing in this league. You've got to have some drive. You've got to reach for your potential. You've got to go for it.'"

Hautamaki, acting on his words, got Rinne a tryout with the Espoo Blues, a Helsinki-area junior team.

That alone was enough to convince Karpat, Rinne's hometown team in Oulu, to believe in the friendly neighborhood goalie.

Karpat offered Rinne, then 17, a spot on its junior team. He took it.

"From that moment on I started to really invest in hockey," Rinne said. "I give a lot of credit to Harri because before that hockey was basically just a hobby for me. In the summer I didn't want to go to the workouts. I played Finnish baseball and after that season was done then I started playing hockey. I would skip offseason training. So, I really needed somebody to sit me down and tell me I'm ready to put in some work and to go after it, and Harri was that guy. 

“There's a ton of other people who helped me along the way, but that was the first real nudge from somebody. I realized he's right, that I'm wasting my time and wasting everybody else's time if I'm just having fun and not really putting in effort."

Two years as a junior with Karpat was followed by three years on the big club in Liiga, the top league in Finland.

Niklas Backstrom, who later played for the Minnesota Wild and Calgary Flames, was his goalie partner. Rinne didn't play often, but his mentality changed and his work ethic grew. He developed goals and aspirations.

"At first I was almost afraid to think too big," Rinne said. "I don't know, mostly mentally I didn't have the tools. I wasn't that driven. I feel like I've always been driven to play hockey, but I guess I was just comfortable playing with my buddies and treating it as a hobby. I was ambitious and I wanted to play at a higher level, but at the end of the day I still wasn't doing anything for it until I got to Karpat. That was a big culture shock for me."

The Predators knew about him because of Finnish scout Janne Kekalainen. The late Ray Shero, then Nashville's assistant general manager, went to Oulu to watch Rinne. He was lucky if he saw him in a game. Sometimes the scouting had to be done just in practice or warmups.

Nashville still took a modest risk by selecting a 21-year-old in the eighth round of the 2004 NHL Draft.

The draft now is seven rounds and 224 picks.

"I knew that Nashville was interested, but I never thought about getting drafted because I was already 21," Rinne said.

Rinne was at a Finnish Midsummer sauna party at a friend's cabin when the Predators picked him. He learned about it from his Finnish agent.

"I was so surprised, but I was very proud of it," Rinne said. "Even though I realized I was a long shot it was a huge motivation booster. It really helped my confidence. It was a big thing to get drafted. I really started believing in myself. Somebody saw something in me."

Pekka Rinne (r.) prepares for a game during his first full NHL season in 2008-09 with teammate Dan Ellis.

Rinne stayed in Oulu playing for Karpat through the NHL lockout in 2004-05 and went to his first training camp with the Predators once the League reopened for the 2005-06 season.

"If there is a second eye-opener, that was it," Rinne said.

But not for the reasons you'd think.

"I remember having Tomas Vokoun and Chris Mason, being on the ice with them, and it must have been the first skate or something like that, and silently in my head I'm like, 'I'm not that far off,'" Rinne said. "I was silently confident."

Rinne's best attributes were his size, athleticism, competitiveness and catching glove, a skill he developed from years of playing Finnish baseball.

"I grew up with a glove in one hand and the ball in another one," Rinne said. "My dad built me this wall outside. During the winter I had a net in front of it to shoot pucks and my cousins would make me go in net. Then every spring, summer and fall I would have a glove in my hand and I would just throw the ball against the wall, scoop it up. I loved catching the ball."

Mitch Korn, the Predators director of goaltending, and goalie coach through the first half of Rinne's career, said "he could scoop up a shot down low like it's a ground ball when most shots like that come off of a guy's pads."

Rinne's game, though, was loud and energetic, so much so that first Korn and then current Predators goaltending coach Ben Vanderklok had to tame the 6-foot-5 goaltending project.

Rinne said he was a tall goalie who played small.

"I was a wild thing," Rinne said. "I was gung-ho, all over the place. That was the way I learned how to play. Until Karpat, I didn't really have any goalie coaching so it was very, I don't know, unorthodox. But Mitch was so great with me. He brought a totally new element to my game."

Former Predators coach Barry Trotz said, "I give Mitch a lot of credit for quieting down his athleticism and making it more acute and functional. And I give Mitch a lot of credit for him mentally to get into that really good place where he could let go of things."

Over time, Rinne became more economical in his movements through the blue paint so he could arrive for a save on time instead of requiring an acrobatic post-to-post dive.

He learned how to use his size and athleticism in tandem. He learned how to play tall.

"He became a different goalie," said Mason, the former Nashville goalie who is now a Predators broadcaster. "He was 6-5 but he used to be crouched so low so he wouldn't look like he was 6-5. As his career went on he became more upright. He'd use his size better. He wouldn't have to be so aggressive. He would pay attention to the routes he would skate in his net, further back so he wouldn't have to dive across. Because he was so willing to do that, to work at his skill set and evolve with the game and the position, I think he had some of his best years near the end of his career."

To that point, Rinne's consistency became one of his greatest attributes.

He had 162 wins in 314 games, a 2.39 goals-against average, .918 save percentage and 32 shutouts over his first six full NHL seasons from 2008-14. In his last seven, from 2014-21, he had 206 wins in 366 games, a 2.47 GAA, .916 save percentage and 28 shutouts.

Pekka Rinne made such an impact on Nashville that there now stands a statue of the goalie outside Bridgestone Arena.

Within those last seven seasons he helped the Predators reach the Stanley Cup Final in 2017, won the Vezina Trophy as the NHL's best goalie in 2017-18, when Nashville also won the Presidents' Trophy with the League’s best record, and was selected to the NHL All-Star Game in 2016, 2018 and 2019.

"The guys that have stuck around to ages like 'Peks' and others, all their games evolve," Korn said. "If you think about what the NHL looked like 10 years ago and what it looks like now, they all evolve. Dominik Hasek evolved. Grant Fuhr evolved. That's how you stay in the game, because if you don't evolve you will be out of the game way faster."

Meanwhile, Rinne was credited with the rise of Nashville into a hockey town, with the city earning the nickname Smashville.

The NHL held its All-Star Weekend festivities in Nashville in 2016, with Rinne a star of the show. The positive economic impact on the city was estimated at $25 million.

Rinne led the Predators to the Cup Final the following year.

He and the Predators played their first outdoor game on Jan. 1, 2020, when they were visitors against the Dallas Stars in front of 85,630 at Cotton Bowl Stadium in the NHL Winter Classic. They lost 4-2, with Rinne making 31 saves.

The Predators landed their own outdoor game on Feb. 26, 2022, selling out Nissan Stadium with 68,619 coming to the home of the NFL's Tennessee Titans to watch the NHL Stadium Series against the Tampa Bay Lightning.

Two days earlier, Rinne's No. 35 was raised to the rafters at Bridgestone Arena, becoming the first retired number in Predators history. The team also announced a bronze statue of Rinne would be erected outside the arena; it was unveiled on March 25, 2023.

Pekka Rinne has his No. 35 retired by the Predators on Feb. 24, 2022.

"Unassuming and humble and yet 6-foot-5 and super athletic and a great teammate," Trotz said. "I don't think there's a person that ever played with Pekka that said, 'Man, I don't really get along with him.' Everybody got along with Pekka."

Rinne credits Juuse Saros' emergence as his goalie partner as a big reason for his ability to evolve. 

Saros, who became Rinne's full-time backup in 2016-17, is 5-foot-11 and relies on his technical skills over athleticism.

Pekka Rinne (l.) credits Juuse Saros as a big reason for his evolution as an NHL goalie.

"The way he uses his edges, the way he's able to play down low, as a smaller guy how patient he is with the shots," Rinne said. "A lot of times for me it was enough to drop down and then react, but now I started shifting on the puck, doing things the correct way. It really helped me in my later-on years. I ended up having my best years in the NHL as a little bit of an older guy."

As he did, his competitive drive stayed as strong as ever -- even in practice.

"We always used to take one-timers as 'D' after practice; I wanted to work on it, I wanted all the other 'D' to work on it," said Hall of Fame defenseman Shea Weber who played with Rinne in Nashville from 2005-16. "So, normally we'd do it without a goalie, but then Peks would want to come in because he'd want to face shots. Without a goalie I'm trying to go high and pick corners and I'm not too worried about where I'm shooting, but he gets in there and I'm shooting like three-quarters speed, a foot and a half off the ice. He yelled at me."

Weber had one of the hardest shots in the League. Rinne didn't care.

"He yelled like, 'Shoot the damn puck' with some Finnish words," Weber said. "He yelled, 'Shoot it for real.' And then I get (ticked) off and I'm shooting them for real, buzzing them by his ears, and he's still trying to make the saves and being competitive. It was go time. I didn't want to hit him in the head, but he wasn't worried about it, he was like, 'Shoot it like you would in a game and I'll stop it.'"

Trotz said the Predators would lose 3-2, getting outshot 45-15, and Rinne, ever the competitor and leader, would blame himself for the loss.

"Pekka would be coming to apologize to me," Trotz said. "I would say, 'Well, you know what, Peks, you made 42 stops, we had 15 shots on net, we didn't help a whole lot.' He would say, 'It doesn't matter, I could be the difference.'

"When the shootout came into effect everybody would try to put the pressure on the other team by going first and scoring, but Pekka said, 'Let them go first on me. I'll stop it. You just get one.' Not very many goalies have that attitude."

Vanderklok said there were times when he'd remind Rinne to take it in, to drop the competitive streak in him so he could soak in everything he had.

That didn't happen, with the rare exception being when he won the Vezina after the 2017-18 season, when there was no next game to be played for months.

"The timing allowed him to take it in," Vanderklok said. "It was so rewarding to see how happy he was, to see him take a breath, to actually be able to process it and truly be present. That was the best part about it. I remember getting a chance to go back and see him when he was taking pictures and he's like, 'Benny, look at the names on this thing.' But I also remember him on the plane 24 hours after that saying, 'How are we going to do it again?'"

Rinne never won the Vezina again, though he finished in the top 10 in voting in 2018-19.

He competed in practice and for playing time with Saros. The two became close friends, with Rinne taking the fellow Finn under his wing, guiding him until, finally, at 38 years old, Rinne decided it was time to give way completely.

Pekka Rinne takes a selfie with a young fans in Stockholm, Sweden, last season before the Predators played the Pittsburgh Penguins in the 2025 NHL Global Series.

Rinne played his last game on May 10, 2021. He made 30 saves in a 5-0 victory against the Carolina Hurricanes, his 369th win and 60th shutout in an NHL career that beat the odds.

"He went out playing at an elite level," Mason said.