Game 80- Penguins @ Tampa Bay Lightning

The Penguins will take their second crack at clinching a playoff spot on Tuesday night when they visit the bottom feeding Tampa Bay Lightning in the third to last game of the regular season. Either a Penguins win or a Florida regulation loss to Philadelphia will clinch the elusive playoff berth for Pittsburgh.

With Montreal's loss to Ottawa on Monday, the Penguins retained the inside track on the conference's sixth playoff seed. They are still in the hunt to move as high as the fourth seed, though that goal seems fairly lofty at this point.

Lately, the long eliminated Tampa has been getting its biggest offensive contributions from rookie standout and former first overall draft pick Steven Stamkos, as well as the consistently productive Marty St. Louis, who leads the squad in points.

Superstar centerman Vincent Lecavalier headlines a group of injured players for Tampa Bay that also includes goalie Mike Smith, forward Ryan Craig, and defensemen Andrej Meszaros, Paul Ranger, Marek Malik, and Cory Murphy, Josef Melichar and Richard Petiot.

Marc-Andre Fleury is expected to start in goal for the Pens against Karri Ramo for the Bolts.

Penguins centers Evgeni Malkin and Sidney Crosby have each gone pointless in their last two games. Malkin's slump could not have come at a worse time, as Washington winger Alexander Ovechkin has closed to within a whisker thin two point margin of tying him for the league scoring lead. Malkin has looked particularly comatose of late, and he needs to snap out of it soon if the Pens are to be successful.

Penguins-

Kunitz-Crosby-Guerin
Cooke-Malkin-Sykora
Fedotenko-Staal-Kennedy
Dupuis-Talbot-Godard

Orpik-Gonchar
Eaton-Letang
Scuderi-Gill

Fleury

Lightning-

Malone-Stamkos-St. Louis
Prospal-Halpern-Artyukhin
Karsums-Szczechura-Pettinger
Bochenski-Konopka-Hall

Lashoff-Welch
Krajicek-Smaby
Mihalik-Koci

Ramo

GO PENS!