In the meantime, starting netminder Andrei Vasilevskiy has played every game for the Lightning so far this season with McElhinney unavailable for much of it, going 7-1-1 with a 1.88 goals-against average and .931 save percentage. Vasilevskiy has allowed two or fewer goals in seven of his nine starts this season and has the Lightning atop the League standings alongside Vegas on points percentage.
With the Lightning starting a back-to-back set in Nashville tonight (8 p.m. Eastern puck drop), head coach Jon Cooper said prior to departing for Music City McElhinney would start one of the two games.
Following the team's morning skate Monday, Cooper confirmed McElhinney will start the back-to-back opener.
"It's all about scheduling and where Mac's going to play from here on out," Cooper explained. "We've had some speed bumps in the road with games cancelled and COVID protocols and all these other things that play into it, so we have to be able to adapt. But we've got a plan for all these situations, and it doesn't matter to me whether you play the front end or the back end. You're playing a NHL game, and you've got to be ready to play and so does our team. And so, this is just schedule-wise and planning for the future, this is the game he gets."
McElhinney last played in a NHL game March 8 at Detroit, a 5-4 shootout loss that was the second half of a back-to-back, the Bolts winning in Boston 5-3 a night earlier. McElhinney made 24 saves on 28 shots against the Red Wings and one of three stops in the shootout. Four days later, the NHL season paused and the remainder of the regular season games were eventually cancelled.
McElhinney was outstanding in his two appearances in Blue-White intra-squad scrimmages the Lightning held during the restart training camp prior to leaving for the bubble in Toronto. But he never saw any action during Tampa Bay's 25-game run to the Stanley Cup, Vasilevskiy the only goalie to play in the postseason, including an exhibition rout of Florida before the Round Robin games started.
Vasilevskiy, in fact, has started 35-consecutive games for Tampa Bay going back to the 2019-20 regular season and including the 2020 Playoffs and has been the only goalie to play in all 35 of those games.
McElhinney went 8-7-3 with a 2.89 GAA and .906 save percentage in his first season with Tampa Bay in 2019-20. He's looking for his first career win versus Nashville having gone 0-1-1 in four overall appearances.
"It's been a while since Mac has been in a real game, I guess, but we've seen him in practice, we've seen him in our scrimmages," Lightning forward Tyler Johnson said. "Everything that we've been doing, he's been playing unbelievable. I don't think anyone on our team's thinking we have to do anything extra, anything special for this game for him except for just playing our best and trying to help him as much as we can."
The Lightning lineup will see another tweak tonight in Nashville. The Bolts will go back to a 12 forward, six defenseman alignment after playing the last three games 11F/7D. Alexander Volkov will play tonight as rookie defenseman Cal Foote sits.
