The Tampa Bay Lightning should have their captain back for tomorrow’s Stadium Series. According to ESPN’s Greg Wyshynski, the Lightning are expected to activate Victor Hedman ahead of tomorrow’s outdoor matchup against the Boston Bruins.
Unfortunately, it won’t be a straightforward activation. According to PuckPedia, Tampa Bay will need to clear $841K of salary cap space to activate Hedman. Still, it’ll be fairly easy to get there. The Lightning could move Brayden Point from injured reserve to long-term injured reserve, or reassign Maxim Groshev to the AHL’s Syracuse Crunch.
It’s been nearly two months since Hedman last participated in an NHL contest. The 17-year veteran hasn’t played since December 9th after undergoing elbow surgery, limiting him to 18 games on the season.
Still, he’s been his typical self when healthy. Before the injury, Hedman registered 12 assists while averaging more than 21 minutes of ice time per game. Half of those tallies came on the Bolts’ powerplay.
Additionally, he hasn’t missed a step on the defensive side of the puck. Specifically at even strength, Hedman averaged a 53.7 CorsiFor% and 92.1 on-ice SV%. The latter output is the highest he has managed since the 2017-18 campaign.
It’ll be interesting to see how head coach Jon Cooper redeploys Hedman upon his return. He is a natural top-pairing option, but Cooper is likely to be hesitant about breaking up the combination of J.J. Moser and Darren Raddysh, given how well the pair has been performing lately.
Given that fellow veteran Ryan McDonagh recently returned from a foot injury, the Lightning could slide him down to the bottom pairing with Maxwell Crozier. That would give both McDonagh and Hedman ample time to ramp up to their natural playing time and spread out the depth as Tampa Bay returns to full strength.
Good to see Victor Hedman back with the team for this exceedingly hyped Stadium Series bout in Tampa. The NHL, the media, etc seem to have given this outside event some extra attention and value compared to many of the recent ones in the past couple of years including the Winter Classic in Miami which many felt underwhelmed.