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Nashville, TN -- Pekka Rinne had a 30-save shutout and Matt Duchene scored twice, as the Nashville Predators (31-23-2, 64pts) defeated the Carolina Hurricanes (36-12-8, 80pts) 5-0 on Monday night.

Ryan Johansen, Tanner Jeannot, and Rocco Grimaldi also scored for Nashville.

In the regular-season finale for two teams headed for a first-round playoff series, many of the best players were absent.

Carolina chose to rest Dougie Hamilton, Andrei Svechnikov, Jordan Staal, Brett Pesce, and Jaccob Slavin.

Roman Josi, Matthias Ekholm, Ryan Ellis, Calle Jarnkrok, Luke Kunin, and Viktor Arvidsson got the night off for Nashville.

In a game where neither team had much to gain, but plenty to lose, Carolina was disinterested at best.

"We're going to flush that one," Carolina head coach Rod Brind'Amour said. "This is the one game the whole year that we weren't [competitive] in...Overall, we're just going to move on."

The time on ice numbers tell the story: Sebastian Aho played 13 minutes, Teuvo Teravainen played 10. Steven Lorentz led all Canes' forwards with 17.

Jordan Martinook played 17 minutes in his return from a lower-body injury. The Canes' alternate captain also recorded 7 hits.

For the Canes, the most glaring contrast to the typical setup was on the back-end. Usually, the team's greatest strength, the defense pairings, were shaky all night. Jake Gardiner had a nightmarish evening. While quarterbacking the Canes' powerplay, he was beaten down the ice for two shorthanded goals and finished with a minus-3 rating.

While the game was meaningless from the perspective of the upcoming playoffs, there were still moments of great individual importance.

Joey Keane, a 21-year-old native of Chicago, made his NHL debut.

"Honestly, I didn't know what to think. I knew it was just going to be another hockey game, so that's what I focused on," Keane said. "It was a great experience, and I'm looking forward to the next one."

For Nashville, it proved to be a night to gain confidence. Matt Duchene, who entered the game on an eight-game scoreless drought, scored twice. The two goals on Monday represent 33% of his season total (6).

Similarly, Pekka Rinne (10-12-1, .907 SV%, 2.84 GAA) shook off the cobwebs and put in an impressive 30 save shutout performance. While Rinne is unlikely to see action in the playoffs (barring injury to Juuse Saros), Monday's game was a poignant moment for the 38-year-old Finn. Most expect this season to be his last in Nashville, after a 14-year run and a Vezina Trophy win in 2018.

"You probably couldn't have scripted it better. The last regular-season game, but no one's saying it's the last regular-season game for [Rinne]," Nashville head coach John Hynes said. "This team has to get ready for the playoffs, and [Rinne] is a big part of it."

After the game, Brind'Amour turned his focus to how the upcoming layoff ahead of the playoffs will allow his staff to conduct full practices.

"We haven't practiced in a month," Brind'Amour said. "We haven't had a real practice where I can push the guys and get our pace back. You could see it tonight; you could see it the last two weeks. Once we clinched [the playoff birth], I could see we let off the gas pedal a little bit."

Housekeeping

Nick Cousins, Filip Forsberg, Tanner Jeannot, Ryan Johansen, Brad Richardson, Yakov Trenin, and Dante Fabbro each recorded one assist for Nashville.

Brock McGinn (upper body) and Cedric Paquette (undisclosed) were listed as injured for the Canes.

Up Next

Carolina: The Hurricanes return home to Raleigh. The date and time of their first game of their playoff series against the Predators has yet to be announced but will likely be either on Saturday or Sunday.

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