Why has the Lightning’s Victor Hedman struggled defensively this season?

Credit: © Sergei Belski

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Something just isn’t right with Victor Hedman’s defensive play this season. While I wouldn’t say he’s completely lost his game by any means, he’s been far from the defenseman we’re used to seeing contend for Norris Trophies every season, especially when you look at his underlying numbers.

After having a 5-on-5 expected goals against per 60 minutes of 2.12 from 2012 to 2022, which was tied for 56th in the league, it’s dropped to 3.1 this season, which is the 19th worst in the NHL and puts his name next to the likes of David Savard, Seth & Caleb Jones, Erik Gudbranson, and Vladislav Gavrikov, all defensemen who are either well known for their defensive struggles or who are playing on teams that bleed scoring chances against. And to cap it all off, his defensive goals above replacement is -5.1, which is the sixth worst among defensemen.

So, not only is Hedman not playing to his normal elite standard, he’s actually putting up results similar to the worst defensemen in the league. He clearly isn’t one of the worst in the league, though, so let’s dive into why this is the case on paper.

What makes this a bit easier is that there is actually a precedent for this, as Hedman also had some struggles in the 2020-21 season. While his offense was still great and was what helped him secure his fifth of six straight Norris Trophy finalist finishes that season, his defense was subpar with a -1.4 defensive GAR.

However, we learned there was a reason for it, as after the Lightning won their second straight Stanley Cup that season, he underwent knee surgery to take care of an injury he’d been dealing with for a majority of that season.

So, a very easy answer for his struggles this year could just be injury-related issues. He’s only missed three games, with one due to attending the birth of his second son, but the other two coming from when he was scratched for two straight contests due to an undisclosed upper-body injury. Whether that injury fully healed or has just become bearable enough to keep playing, we won’t know until the end of the season, but it’s a possibility.

Another important factor is his age and the amount of fatigue he could be experiencing. While elite players like Hedman still usually play at a high-end level in their early 30s, Hedman is no spring chicken at 32, and that does mean physical aspects like injuries and fatigue will impact his play, especially considering Hedman’s size, the amount he plays every game, and the toll his style of play takes on his body.

Since the start of the 2020 Stanley Cup Playoffs in the bubble, only two players have played as many games as Hedman’s 251, and that’s his teammates in Alex Killorn (with 251) and Pat Maroon (with 254). Considering that Hedman plays more minutes every game and a much bigger role than those two teammates, it’s safe to say that no one has played as much hockey as Hedman has in that period of time.

I use the start of the bubble playoffs as the cutoff for two reasons. First, every game before that came before a nearly five month break from actual gameplay and about four months from any kind of hockey in general before training camps had opened in July of 2020, meaning every player was well-rested at that point. Second, it’s the start of a two and a half year stretch that covers parts of four seasons tightly cramped together, and it’s the stretch where the Lightning went on three straight Stanley Cup Final trips, giving them the shortest offseasons possible in that span.

The Lightning finished their 2020 playoff run on Sept. 28, 2020, and had about three months (not including any Cup-related celebrations or offseason workout schedules) to rest before they started playing a tightly compacted 56-game shortened season in January 2021. They then finished that season on July 7, 2021, and had about two months of rest (not including any Cup-related celebrations or offseason workout schedules) before starting the 2021-22 season in September. They then finished that season on June 26, 2022, and had about two months of rest before the current 2022-23 season, although this offseason came without any Cup-related celebrations.

That’s a lot of hockey in a short amount of time for a guy in his 30s. It’s not the entire reason for his struggles, but I wouldn’t be shocked if it has played a role. While I’m sure he’d love to go on another Cup run this season, an early summer and a couple more months of rest probably wouldn’t hurt him right now.

That said, there have also been some on-ice reasons for his struggles this season as well, and it’s an often overlooked aspect of the many cap casualties that Tampa Bay has seen over the years. The Lightning blueline was gutted over the past offseason, losing two key pieces of the team’s top four in Hedman’s regular partner Jan Rutta and Ryan McDonagh.

Rutta was a necessary loss for the Lightning in the sense that he is the kind of player that you have on a Cup-contending team to complement your main core, and the second you try to keep those players around is when you start to self-sabotage your final chances at another run. But that doesn’t mean that it still wasn’t a loss, especially for Hedman. It can be quite the adjustment losing a regular defense partner that you had established chemistry with, especially stylistically, and I wouldn’t be surprised if some of Hedman’s issues are rooted in adjusting to new partners.

While Hedman and McDonagh rarely played together (they had just 89:49 of ice time together during the 2019-20 to 2021-22 regular seasons, and 34:43 in their three Cup Final runs), McDonagh was essential to Hedman’s play as well because he took on the big shutdown role for Tampa Bay.

That’s not to say that Hedman was sheltered and McDonagh was carrying the load all by himself, but his absence certainly disrupts the structure they had in Tampa Bay during their three seasons that saw trips to the Final. Hedman and Rutta were on one pair, McDonagh and Erik Cernak were on the other, and they split the duties of the big shutdown minutes against their opponents’ top six forwards, which let them shelter Mikhail Sergachev and whoever else they had playing that night on the bottom pair.

With Rutta and McDonagh out of the picture, that means that Hedman and Cernak gets loaded onto one shutdown pair, and thus faces the toughest competition every night so that the Bolts can shelter the pair of Sergachev and Nick Perbix, or they split Hedman and Cernak up and pair them with Ian Cole and Zach Bogosian.

That isn’t all bad, as Cole actually leads Lightning defensemen in 5v5 xGA/60 regularized-adjusted plus-minus (a stat from Evolving Hockey which isolates a players impact on the ice from factors like teammates and competition) with -0.332. Unfortunately for Hedman, though, that’s the guy Cernak plays with, while Hedman gets Bogosian, who is a fine bottom pair defenseman but isn’t meant for a role like this.

Bogosian’s inability to drive play means that Hedman becomes the focus for opponents. They can put more pressure on Hedman to prevent him from moving the puck and making Bogosian move it more, and since that’s not a skillset that he particularly excels at, it makes it more difficult for that pair to move the puck as efficiently as Hedman is used to.

Of course, even if you isolate Hedman’s impact, he still has the worst defensive impact among Lightning defensemen, so it can’t just be his usage. That’s where injuries, age, and fatigue all likely play a role in this, combining for an ugly result.

That said, with us only being just over halfway through the season, it’s still a small sample size, and maybe we learn after a full season or two that Hedman just can’t defend anymore. Plus, there are so many other factors that could be playing into it that we don’t know and probably won’t ever know. Maybe he’s just coasting through the season because he knows the Lightning will still make the playoffs? Maybe he’s saving his energy for a deep playoff run?

But, from what we do know, there’s a strong chance that we’re looking at a defenseman in the final years of his prime who’s played a lot of hockey with little rest and is also adjusting to a drastic change in his usage from the previous three seasons. And as we saw in 2020-21, a lingering injury can impact his play significantly, but that didn’t stop him from rebounding in 2021-22 to his usual self.

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Why has the Lightning’s Victor Hedman struggled defensively this season?

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