GLENDALE, Ariz. — Hello, Pekka Rinne. We're the voices inside your head. You know our names. We're the guys who haunt your nights. We're the guys who crash your net. We're the guys who own you.
We're the Phoenix Coyotes, and we're coming to your house soon — very soon.
Do you remember four short days ago, when this Western Conference semifinal series was being billed as a battle of elite goaltenders? There was, after all, a good reason.
Rinne was coming off a strong performance against Detroit and had just been named a finalist for the Vezina Trophy as the league's best goaltender. Coyotes goalie Mike Smith had just turned in one of history's more memorable playoff series, stopping 95 percent of the shots he faced off the sticks of the Chicago Blackhawks' star-studded lineup.
But the playoffs are a funny thing. One round's god is another round's goat.
To the rest of the league, Rinne may be a Vezina candidate. To the Coyotes, he's Murray Bannerman, the one-time anointed heir to Tony Esposito who finished his career with a losing record and goals-against average of more than 3.80.
Phoenix scored early and Phoenix scored often in a 5-3 win Sunday at Jobing.com Arena to take a 2-0 series lead as the series shifts to Nashville for Games 3 and 4.
Sunday's game marked the fourth time in six meetings with Rinne this season that the Coyotes have scored at least four goals. In six games against Rinne, the Coyotes have 21 goals, an average of 3.5 per game.
To put that in perspective, Rinne allowed 2.39 per game overall during the regular season. To put it in greater perspective, the nine goals the Coyotes have scored in these two games equals the total the Red Wings scored in five games against the Predators in the first round of the playoffs.
You're familiar with the Red Wings, right? Datsyuk. Zetterberg. Lidstrom.
"I have to be better, no question," Rinne said in a quiet Nashville locker room Sunday night. "You have to have a short memory and move forward."
That might be best, because the Coyotes scored every way imaginable on Sunday. It was a house of horrors for Rinne.
They crashed the net for goals from Martin Hanzal and Taylor Pyatt. They got a deflection from captain Shane Doan. They got a brilliant backdoor feed from Keith Yandle to playoff ace Antoine Vermette — thanks to some good board work from Mikkel Boedker. And they got plenty of help from their erstwhile defensive-minded opponent.
With the Coyotes leading 2-1, the Predators first-ever draft pick, David Legwand, tried to glove a fluttering puck out of harm's way behind the net. Instead, he batted it right over the cage and onto the stick of Coyotes wing Radim Vrbata in the slot. Vrbata accepted the offering with grace by depositing it into the Nashville net.
It was one of many Nashville blunders, with an inordinate amount of them coming from the Predators' blue-liners.
"I don't think our defense corps has played well at all in this series," Nashville coach Barry Trotz said. "We've been real light. Five-on-five, how many times are they standing next to one of their guys and they're whacking pucks at the net?"
Trotz wasn't exactly ringing in his endorsement of Rinne's play, either.
"He's been OK, but the team in front of him hasn't," he said.
He's right about the defense, but OK goaltending won't get it done in the playoffs. Neither will booting rebounds into the slot, as Rinne did on Pyatt's goal. Neither will getting caught badly out of position, as he did on Hanzal's goal when Vrbata was able to slip a pass between his pads from behind the net.
In the playoffs, your goalies have to do more than stop the shots they're supposed to stop. They have to stop those and a few they're not supposed to stop. That's what Smith did in the first round against the Blackhawks.
Smith's performance Sunday was average, but he's allowed one average game given what he's done thus far in the postseason. Average would be a welcome improvement for Rinne against the Coyotes.
"I don't think we're surprised, but we're definitely grateful getting some goals, for sure," Doan said. "We were thinking it was going to be hard no matter what goalie we played in the playoffs. We're going to keep doing that same thing."
The Coyotes have a simple game plan when facing Rinne.
"A lot of shots, and keep it low because he's very good on his glove," Hanzal said. "A lot of shots and traffic at the net."
That's hardly a revelation in tactical hockey, but in terms of executing, the Coyotes have been letter perfect. If it continues, this will clearly be a short series, but nobody in a red sweater on Sunday was expecting Rinne to cave.
"We're not expecting to get nine more (goals) in the next two (games)," Doan cautioned. "We know how good he is and what he's capable of doing."
