Silver Nuggets: Senators/Lightning; McElhinney starts; Senators chasing Da Costa

The Ottawa Senators take on the Tampa Bay Lightning for the third time in nineteen days. A win combined with a Florida loss would see the Senators leapfrog both the Panthers and the Islanders and into fifth last. Tampa Bay, meanwhile, can clinch a playoff spot with a win and a Carolina loss in regulation.

In another game tonight, hopefully the Canucks can finally end Nashville's winning streak and renew my fading hope of the Predators missing the playoffs. Dallas is six points back of Nashville, but has two games in hand. Dallas would also win the tiebreaker. There is still hope!

Also, the big news of the day is...the Ontario Budget is released at 4 p.m. today! Yeah! Woo! No? Okay then. :(

Here are today's links:

Tonight's game

• Game preview. (NHL.com, Sens Extra)
• The panel is split between the bloggers and the main lame stream media. All four bloggers predict a win, the other three predict a loss. (Sens Extra)
• Curtis McElhinney will get the start tonight and try to improve to 3-0 against Tampa Bay. (Ottawa Senators)

General Sens News

• The Senators are chasing after highly sought after college free agent Stephane Da Costa from Paris, France. Hopefully he's more Bobby Butler than Jesse Winchester. (Sportsnet)
• Daniel Alfredsson is unlikely to play on this road trip, but he continues to practice. It's been a rough season for Alfie but hopefully he can come back strong next season! (Sportsnet, Citizen)
• Ryan Shannon hopes that the Senators can continue to win, and the teams ahead of them can continue to win as well. I like his way of thinking. (Citizen)
• The Sun headlines that "Despite Anderson, Sens in shootout shambles". The Sens are 2-1 in shootouts (granted they only scored two goals) with Anderson though, but whatever. (Sun)

More after the jump.

General Hockey News

• Gabriel Landeskog might want to be an Ottawa Senator, but Ryan Nugent-Hopkins wants to be an Edmonton Oiler. Well Ryan...someone's got to. (Sun)
• A Nashville blog takes issue with the Canadian media's image of Nashville as solely a country music town. (On The Forecheck)/