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Rinne gets first shutout as Predators blank Sabres

Dec 2, 2008 - 3:55 AM BUFFALO, New York (Ticker) -- Rookie Pekka Rinne made 30 saves en route to his first career shutout as the Nashville Predators defeated the Buffalo Sabres, 2-0, on Monday night.

Captain Jason Arnott snapped a scoreless tie with 11:53 left in regulation and J.P. Dumont added another goal less than three minutes later for the Predators, who had lost four of their previous six contests (2-3-1).

Playing in his ninth career game, Rinne turned aside 10 shots in the first period, nine more in the next and 11 in the third to improve to 4-0-0 on the season.

"There's a lot of times games are tight, it's normal," Rinne said. "There's no extra pressure put on me. I just kind of do my own job."

Behind Nashville's aggressive defense, the 26-year-old Rinne was not faced with a lot of quality scoring chances from Buffalo. But the Finn did make some big saves late in the game to preserve the win and the shutout.

"I like the way the guys responded," Predators coach Barry Trotz said. "They stayed disciplined, they stayed focused and that made the game a lot easier. It allowed for everyone to contribute."

Rinne's best stop could have been when he denied Jason Pominville, who was stationed at the edge of the crease and took a quick one-timer off a centering feed.

"The guys did a great job boxing out those Buffalo guys so I could see the puck," Rinne said. "There was a couple times I got lucky, I didn't see the puck, it just hit me. That's part of the game, you need those bounces."

Arnott netted his second game-winning goal of the season by deflecting blue-liner Greg De Vries' shot past goaltender Ryan Miller.

"It seemed like that was one of the goals that was going to be it tonight," Arnott said. "It just wasn't happening for both ends. It was one of those boring games, just a lot of defensive plays."

Dumont, who received an assist on the first goal, doubled the advantage with 9:20 remaining in the final session by tapping the puck just across the goal line on a diving effort.

Miller was nearly as good as Rinne for most of the night, stopping 25 of the 27 shots he faced.

Sabres coach Lindy Ruff was not pleased with his team's performance.

"It's tough, it's frustrating," he said. "We turned the puck over, there wasn't much going on in the game. There wasn't much going on for 40 minutes.

"There wasn't a lot of energy by anybody. It was a turnover-fest. Our fans were frustrated and I understand why."