NASHVILLE, Tenn. – When the Stanley Cup is awarded each June, there is always a curious convergence of riotous excitement and funereal silence.



The emotional intersection of the winners and losers.



And the dichotomy is even more pronounced when a team wins on the road.



On June 11, Pekka Rinne and the rest of the Nashville Predators sat in silence in their locker room at Bridgestone Arena, home to some of the most exuberant playoff partying the NHL has ever seen, while on the ice — their ice — the Pittsburgh Penguins celebrated their second straight Stanley Cup win.



“It was hard. It was,” Rinne said.



Less than a year later, with Rinne sitting in that same dressing room at Bridgestone Arena, the same spot he has occupied since we can remember, the goaltender clearly remembers that night.



“Yeah, you could hear. Obviously, there was a bunch of Pittsburgh fans and you could hear the fans, you could...