McElhinney's best seasons in the NHL have come in his mid-30s, more than a decade after his first game in the League, and he was part of the Tampa Bay Lightning's Stanley Cup championship team in 2020.

The Calgary Flames drafted McElhinney in the sixth round (No. 176) in the 2002 NHL Draft, after the first of his four seasons at Colorado College. The London, Ontario, native turned pro in 2005 and was in his third season in the American Hockey League before making his NHL debut with the Flames on Oct. 22, 2007, entering a game against the San Jose Sharks in relief of starting goalie Miikka Kiprusoff.

He spent all of the 2008-09 season with the Flames and earned his first NHL victory on April 11, 2009, defeating the Edmonton Oilers 4-1 in Calgary's final game of the season.

The Flames signed McElhinney to a two-year contract before the 2009-10 season, but traded him to the Anaheim Ducks on March 3, 2010. The Ducks traded him to the Lightning on Feb. 24, 2011, but he was claimed on waivers by the Ottawa Senators four days later.

The Phoenix Coyotes signed him to a one-year contract on July 4, 2011, but traded him to the Columbus Blue Jackets on Feb. 22, 2012. Columbus gave McElhinney his first sustained stretch in the NHL; he played 85 games during four seasons with the Blue Jackets before being claimed on waivers by the Toronto Maple Leafs on Jan. 8, 2017.

McElhinney went 6-7-0 down the stretch, getting more time after starter Frederik Andersen was injured. In the next-to-last game of the season, McElhinney made arguably the biggest save of his career by robbing Sidney Crosby in the final seconds to preserve a victory that put the Maple Leafs into the Stanley Cup Playoffs for the first time since 2013.

He built on that in 2017-18, going 11-5-1 with a 2.14 goals-against average, .934 save percentage and three shutouts in a backup role behind Frederik Andersen. But when the Maple Leafs tried to get him through waivers before the 2018-19 season, he was claimed by the Carolina Hurricanes.

McElhinney made an NHL career-high 33 starts for the Hurricanes and became a 20-game winner for the first time, going 20-11-2 with a 2.58 GAA, .912 save percentage and two shutouts. When Petr Mrazek was injured in Game 2 of the Eastern Conference Second Round against the New York Islanders, McElhinney stepped in and won three straight games to complete a sweep.

But McElhinney was on the move again that summer, returning to the Lightning as a free agent on July 1, 2019. He was 8-7-3 with a 2.89 GAA, a .906 save percentage and one shutout as the backup to Andrei Vasilevskiy.