A day after watching the greatest player in organization history sign with another team, the Tampa Bay Lightning avoided repeating the scene next summer with the organization’s greatest defenseman as they announced a four-year extension for Victor Hedman on Tuesday. The deal, which begins in the 2025-26 season will hold an AAV of $8 million, a slight raise on the $7,875,000 from his current contract.
The deal had been rumored for a while as general manager Julien BriseBois alluded to it in his pre-draft meeting with the media, and he confirmed that it would be announced soon when he spoke with reporters yesterday. Erik Erlendsson reported yesterday that the extension would mirror the contract that Steven Stamkos signed with Nashville on Monday.
In a summer of change, the Lightning locked in a constant presence on defense. Since entering the league in the 2009-10 season, Victor Hedman has skated in 1052 regular season games and another 165 playoff games for Tampa Bay. With the exception of his first couple of seasons, he’s been at the top of the defensive rotation for almost his entire career. With 28,804 minutes of ice time, no skater in franchise history has spent more time on the ice in a Lightning uniform than Victor Hedman.
With this extension, it appears he will finish his career as a member of the team as he will be 38-years-old when it expires. The contract itself will probably not age well. Even in a year where his defensive metrics slipped quite a bit, Hedman still played at a top pairing level, boosted by one of the best offensive seasons of his career.
As Micah’s Synthetic Points chart shows, Hedman has slipped from the elite level that he obtained from the 2018-19 through 2021-22 seasons, but is still producing at a borderline first pairing rate. Overall, it was a down season for Hedman, but he also picked up his play as the season moved on.
Offensively, there was no let down as he put up 76 points (13 goals, 63 assists) in 78 games, the second highest-total of his career. From his spot atop of the first power play unit, he put up 4 goals and 27 assists, both vast improvements over the numbers he put up in 2022-23.
The data at All Three Zones shows that Hedman continues to be well above league-average in terms of generating offense in pretty much all aspects of the game.
Defensively, the most troubling aspect of his recent play has been the amount of chances teams are getting from the slot area in front of the net.
Now, that could be partly a systematic issue as that ugly shade of red in front of the Lightning net has shown up in a lot of players charts over the last two seasons. Compare it to the chart from the 2021-22 season for Hedman, arguably his best season as a Bolt so far.
It could have also come from consistency in regards to his defensive partner. From October to the end of December he spent the majority of his ice time (307:14) with Nick Perbix, but also logged more than 85 minutes with Erik Cernak (203:28) and Darren Raddysh (89:54). The pairing with Perbix wasn’t great as they were underwater in scoring chances for (47.95%) and high-danger chances (44.27%).
From January 1st until the end of the season he played almost exclusively with Raddysh and the duo put up a 53.03 SCF% and 57.54 HDCF%. That’s pretty impressive. Using January 1st as an arbitrary dividing point in the season, here is how the Lightning did with Hedman on the ice.
| Stats (5v5) | October-December | January – April |
| HDCF | 47.37% | 56.69% |
| SCF | 50.71% | 52.51% |
| GF | 51.72% | 56.76% |
| xGF | 45.70% | 52.80% |
So, Hedman isn’t quite toasted just yet. The improved productivity of the Hedman/Raddysh pairing was a big part of the Lightning’s push to a playoff spot, especially considering it came while Mikhail Sergachev was out of the line-up due to an injury. While the rest of the pairings seemed to a constant jumble of players, their top pair was a constant.
The addition of Ryan McDonagh does give the Lightning a second strong pairing behind Hedman and Raddysh. McDonagh and Erik Cernak will likely resume their role of taking on opponent’s top forwards which will lessen the load on Hedman defensively.
If Hedman is beyond the lower-body injuries that plagued him for a few years during the Cup run, the contract should be okay. He remains one of the best skating big men in the league and he doesn’t play an overtly physical game. While that has led to some of the criticism of his game, quite frankly he was never a big hitter even during his prime. He’s always relied on his wingspan and positioning to deny scoring chances as opposed to knocking players off of the puck. It’s kind of like criticizing a lock pick for not being a battering ram. Both will open a door, just in different styles.
Keeping Hedman in the fold will also provide some stability as the organization progresses out of it’s golden age. He will be the next captain on this squad and will oversee the next version of the Lightning as they move into the Isaac Howard/Ethan Gauthier/Conor Geekie era over the next few years. There was a lot of change over the past two years, and there is more on the horizon, having The Big Swede patrolling the blue line through it should provide some reassurance for fans.
