When you think of the Nashville Predators, you think of Pekka Rinne.
Inarguably the greatest player in franchise history, the beloved netminder excited and amazed fans in Smashville for 15 seasons while smashing every club goaltending record and several of the Finnish records as well.
Pekka won the Vezina Trophy in 2017-2018 and the King Clancy Memorial Trophy in 2020-2021, but he won the heart of Nashville long before that.
Nashville wore its Gold Set 1 jerseys in 4 preseason games and 21 games in the regular season. 2 of those 21 games were promotional games (December 26th & 28th). That means the traditional “set 1” was worn in just 19 regular season games beginning on October 8th, 2015 and ending on January 5th, 2016.
Furthermore, at some point Pekka Rinne began to wear two jerseys per set. In 2015-2016, the photos suggest he wore this Gold Set 1 specimen more often early in the set before beginning to wear both of his Gold Set 1 jerseys in every game.
Rinne wore this jersey in 18 of the 19 games that the Predators wore their set 1 jerseys in. It is photomatched to 14 of those 18 games, beginning with the very first game of the set. There just aren’t enough pictures of the other 4 games to produce matches.
He had two shutouts in the jersey.
One was on October 10th, 2015 against the Edmonton Oilers in a 2-0 win. The second was a 7-0 victory over the Winnipeg Jets on November 14th, 2015. It was a testy affair which saw the Preds and Jets combine for 156 penalty minutes.
Pekka’s gamer has nice wear with a solid smattering of puck marks around the crest on the front of the jersey. There is one repair on the front near the white piping that encircles the waist.
The right sleeve has a nice puck or stick mark coming down from the tri-star pick sleeve patch, and there are more marks around the edge of the sleeve #3. The left sleeve has a few marks up near the sleeve numbers and there are several marks in the left armpit.
The back is clean on this jersey.
Rinne was the heart and soul of the Nashville Predators.
He wasn’t only the best player on the ice night after night, he was also an integral part of the community with his charitable efforts. That’s why his jersey will be the first to go into the rafters.
I still remember Rinne’s return from a long injury layoff in the mess that was the 2013-2014 season. The way the crowd popped when he stepped back on the ice was unreal.
He’s long been the favorite Pred in my family, and it’s pretty cool to have one of his sweaters back in the fold again.