Red-hot goalie Pekka Rinne carries Predators past Ducks

— -- Nashville's Pekka Rinne continues to do his best imitation of Ken Dryden, Bernie Parent, Patrick Roy?and Jonathan Quick, goalies who got hot at the most opportune time and carried their teams to a Stanley Cup.

Rinne stopped 38 of Anaheim's 41 shots Tuesday night in a 6-3 victory that sent the Predators to their first Stanley Cup Finals, which begins next Monday in Pittsburgh or Ottawa.

"In the back of your head, you've been thinking about the Final, and then when the buzzer goes off, it's an amazing feeling," Rinne said as he and his teammates celebrated.

He has a .942 save percentage this postseason, the best of any goalie in the past five postseasons who has played a minimum of 15 games.

The man teammate P.K. Subban calls "the backbone of our team" is now 12-4 with a 1.70 goals-against average in this postseason, tops among all goalies in the 2017 playoffs.