When Mikhail Sergachev arrived in Tampa in 2017, it wasn’t a coincidence his locker stall was next to Victor Hedman’s.
Hedman, who’d win the Norris Trophy that season, was the game’s premier defenseman. A perfect mentor for the young Russian.
Seven years later, Sergachev doesn’t see much change.
“He’s unbelievable,” Sergachev says. “I don’t think he has ‘stages’ (in his career). When I got here, he was 26. He looks the same, pretty much. On the ice, he’s had a lot of stress. He won the Conn Smythe, a lot of playoff games. But he’s doing the same things he did before.
“He’s just a horse. He’s not slowing down. When you see a player not slowing down, you’re like, ‘Why? He’s getting older.’ That’s because he works and takes care of himself.
“He’s going to go down as one of the best to ever play defenseman. He’s everything you want.”
Hedman’s staying power will be huge for a Lightning team trying to keep its Stanley Cup window open. General manager Julien BriseBois says the team plans on re-signing Hedman, 33, who is one year away from unrestricted free agency.
“The way my body feels and the way my mind feels,” Hedman says, “I feel like I’ve got a lot of good hockey left in me.”
This season was encouraging, even though it ended in a second straight first-round exit. The Lightning needed Hedman more than ever. Sergachev missed nearly three months with a broken leg, and Andrei Vasilevskiy missed the first two months of the season. Young and inexperienced players became regulars. Nick Perbix, 25, played consistently in his second NHL season, and Darren Raddysh, 28, was often a top-pair partner for Hedman in his first full season. Rookies Emil Lilleberg, 23, and Max Crozier, 24, got reps, too.
Hedman was the stalwart, and amid it all, he averaged nearly a point per game, with 13 goals and 76 points in 78 games.
This chart from HockeyViz shows how the Lightning got better down the stretch in Hedman’s minutes, in expected goal generation and suppression at five-on-five.
Hedman’s defensive zone starts (40 percent) were his highest since the first Cup season in 2019-20. And without a ton of support around him, he took on a heftier workload and consistently matched up to top competition.
“It’s kind of amazing actually that these players can sustain their level of play year after year when there’s other players of their stature coming into the league pushing them and pushing them,” coach Jon Cooper says. “They still find a way to be at the top of their game. I guess that’s why those guys get in the Hall of Fame.
“When it was really needed, when we went through massive injuries on the back end and had young guys come in, Victor had to take over. And he did. And it was really impressive.”
This all started last summer. Hedman was disappointed with his 2022-23 season. The wear and tear of three straight runs to the Cup Final had started to add up on the 6-foot-7 Swede and 2020 Conn Smythe winner. He had a knee procedure after the second Cup in 2021. But the blessing in disguise from losing in the first round to the Toronto Maple Leafs in the spring of 2023 was that it gave Hedman his first full offseason in years to train. Not rehab. Train.
Hedman’s legendary workouts, led by Hans Jonsson and Joakim Dettner in his hometown of Örnsköldsvik, Sweden, were a “game-changer” for him in becoming an elite defenseman. They are also how he got back there.
In the spring of 2013, Victor Hedman was at a crossroads. He met with trainer Joakim Dettner and told him, “I want to be the best in the world.” With Hedman a finalist for Norris Trophy tonight, an ICYMI on the workouts he called a “game-changer” in career https://t.co/xnlmyFCmPU pic.twitter.com/8zHnZSfAfz
— Joe Smith (@JoeSmithNHL) June 29, 2021
“The (summer of 2022), he was more or less burned out,” Dettner says. “He needed the pause badly. When he arrived in Sweden for this past summer, he contacted immediately and we concluded in very clear words that this summer was the ‘be back to the giant 2.0’ he always wanted to be.
“What I remember the most is how he never wanted to come over after a summer and not being Super Hedman. He was determined to do every pass, every exercise, 100 percent, to get back to his super level again. He missed only one single pass during the whole summer. Coming back (this season), he felt Super Hedman again.”
It was the first time in four years Hedman had that regular summer workout routine in Sweden, and it made a huge difference.
“This game is getting faster,” he says. “Guys are coming into the league super skilled, super fast. For us, it’s about adapting to that. And it’s always a progress. I’m not going to overhaul the way I play the game. But it’s staying on top of the little things.
“I want to be one of the best players at my position, and I’ve got to keep working on that and keep believing in myself.”
Hedman reached the 1,000-game plateau this season, an iconic milestone that his good friend Steven Stamkos experienced the year before. Hedman says he received an incredible watch, a golf trip and a really good bottle of wine from teammates, among other gifts.
What continues to drive a guy who already has two Stanley Cup rings and a Conn Smythe?
“You reach the mountain twice, but you always want to do it more,” he says. “It’s something you taste one time and you want to taste it again. You want to do it for the guys next to you who haven’t had that opportunity. It’s what drives us. We want to lift the Cup again, just try to be as good as you can for as long as you can.”
Hedman admits another motivator is participating in the 2026 Olympics and the desire to check off a bucket list item he’s never experienced. He’s also playing for Sweden in this year’s IIHF World Championship. One of Hedman’s idols is Detroit Red Wings Hall of Famer Nicklas Lidstrom, whom he first met before the 2009 NHL Draft. Lidstrom played into his 40s. Is that Hedman’s future?
“No, I’m not going to play until I’m 40,” he says, smiling.
Hedman has watched what Stamkos went through this season, the captain and the face of the franchise getting frustrated over the lack of contract talks in the final year of his deal. He hopes that’s not him next year. But, from the sounds of it, the Lightning plan to approach Hedman this summer about an extension. Hedman and Stamkos signed eight-year deals a couple of days apart back in the summer of 2016. Maybe they’ll do it again.
“This is all we know,” Hedman says. “We’ve been here from day one and I’ve been here for almost half my life. I couldn’t picture anything else. It’s a process. It’s a business. And just moving forward here, my thought process is on next season and hopefully I won’t be in the same position as Stammer, but you never know. My plan is to retire a Bolt, and I hope that will come true.”
Stamkos has been there with Hedman for his entire career and has appreciated his evolution.
“He’s been a premier defenseman in this league for a really long time,” Stamkos says. “I mean, there’s not many that have the combination of size and skill that Heddy has, that ability to play both ends of the ice. Just be a horse out there. He’s one of a kind in terms of the skill set and the size and the reach and the ability that he has.
“We all get older and things change, but you adapt and find ways to be successful. If you didn’t know how old Heddy was, you’d still think he’s 27, 28, the way he plays and minutes he plays and shape he’s in. It’s remarkable to watch.”
The Lightning will have around $12 million in cap space this summer, with no doubt a chunk of that going to Stamkos if they can re-sign him. There’s not going to be a ton of room to add another defenseman, so Hedman could be in that role again of helping mentor some of the younger defensemen. He’ll have to carry a heavy load. He loves being that guy the kids look up to, who teaches them the tricks of the trade.
The Lightning are counting on it.
“We’d love to keep Victor going forward,” BriseBois says. “He’s an elite, elite defenseman. He’s one of the special all-time players, an all-time Tampa Bay Lightning Bolt who is still super productive. There’s no reason to believe that won’t be the case going forward.”
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