The Tennessean has opened its "Toast of Music City" voting, selecting the best of Nashville across a gazillion different subjects. If you'd like to log a vote for "On the Forecheck", I'd appreciate it! The banner in the right sidebar will remain available while voting is open.

Besides hiring extra personnel to count all the votes for OtF that will assuredly overwhelm the "Toast of Music City" servers, I'm hoping the Tennessean's political reporters provide some further clarification on the story that a proposed "privilege tax" levied by the State of Tennessee on professional athletes will impact the NBA and NHL, but specifically exclude the NFL because the league might sanction the state if it dared to do such a thing.

Later this afternoon we'll have a Game Thread for tonight's Game 4 in Pittsburgh, so swing on by and chat up the game with your fellow Preds fans. Will the likely return of Pavel Datsyuk swing the balance back in Detroit's favor after the Penguins' big win on Tuesday? Or will Pittsburgh take advantage once again of the Red Wings' Achilles Heel, the penalty kill?

After the jump, your morning news & notes related to the Nashville Predators and the league at large...

Coming Down the Pipe!: Nashville Predators Draft Preview

To get you started thinking about possibilities for the NHL Entry Draft coming up at the end of this month, this blog from an Edmonton sports radio show tosses out a review of Nashville's previous draft history, and a stab at where they might go this time around.

From The Blue Seats: A Few Minutes With .... @kevinweekes
Michael DiLorenzo sits down with veteran goaltender Kevin Weekes to discuss how and why he's interacting with hockey fans on Twitter, joining the likes of Patrik Elias (@pelias) and Steve Sullivan (@Sully26).

KuklasKorner - Bethany's Hockey Rants : Sin Tax…and the Jackets
"I was lucky enough to be asked to go to the meeting and to have Senior Vice President of the Blue Jackets, Greg Kirstein, explain the entire situation to us in regards to the sin tax (the tax on alcohol and cigarettes), and the exact situation that is happening with the Blue Jackets."  It's interesting to see the BJ's actively engage the blogging community in their PR effort around a serious business issue.