Tampa Bay Lightning<\/a>, will have elbow surgery on Monday, which will keep him out of action until February but allow the massive defenseman to represent Sweden at the next Olympics in Milan. Hedman, who will turn 35 on Thursday, was one of six players named to Team Sweden’s preliminary roster for the Olympics. As for his performance, Hedman has 12 assists in 18 games this season. He was selected by Tampa Bay with the No. 2 pick in the 2009 NHL Draft. Over the time in his career, he has scored 171 goals, 635 assists in 1,149 regular-season games, and 120 points (23 goals, 97 assists) in 170 Stanley Cup Playoff games.<\/p>\nBolts Beginnings | Victor Hedman<\/p>\n
He also won the Norris Trophy, awarded to the NHL’s top defenseman, in 2017-18, the Stanley Cup in 2020 and 2021, and the Conn Smythe Trophy, awarded to the most valuable player of the postseason, in 2020.Meanwhile, Jon Cooper, who is Canada\u2019s Olympic coach, stated that Sweden should not worry about Hedman’s availability for the Olympics, adding: “Don\u2019t let the country hit the panic button yet.\u201d He further added, \u201cHedman, he\u2019s our captain, he\u2019s a huge part of our team. But if it\u2019s going to happen, which you don\u2019t want it to, but if it is, it\u2019s better it happens now than in April.\u201dHeadman\u2019s presence will be hugely missed by the team. Nevertheless, it is commendable to note that despite the constant barrage of injuries to top players, the Tampa Bay won 18 of their first 31 games this season.Also read: NHL Player Update: Canadiens\u2019 Jacob Fowler shares his debut experience after playing against Pittsburgh Penguins<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Tampa Bay Lightning defenseman Victor Hedman (77) warms up before an NHL hockey game against the New York…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":81442,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[45324,45322,45323,135,862,45325,45321,137,136,45320],"class_list":["post-81441","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-tampa","tag-nhl-defenseman-stats","tag-nhl-elbow-surgery","tag-olympics-2026-sweden-hockey-team","tag-tampa","tag-tampa-bay-lightning","tag-tampa-bay-lightning-captain","tag-tampa-bay-lightning-news","tag-tampa-headlines","tag-tampa-news","tag-victor-hedman-injury"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/81441","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=81441"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/81441\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/81442"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=81441"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=81441"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=81441"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
![\"NHL](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/lightning-defenseman-victor-hedman-to-have-elbow-surgery-he39s-expected-to-be-ready-for-the-olympics.jpeg\" "\\"Tampa")
Tampa Bay Lightning defenseman Victor Hedman (77) warms up before an NHL hockey game against the New York Islanders (Image via AP Photo\/Chris O’Meara) In an unfortunate situation, Tampa Bay Lightning captain Victor Hedman is scheduled to undergo elbow surgery on Monday. According to the NHL, he will have a procedure on his elbow on Monday, and the Tampa Bay Lightning defenseman is expected to return in time to play for Sweden at the Olympic Winter Games Milano Cortina 2026 in February. As per reports, Hedman was placed on injured reserve before Thursday\u2019s game against the New Jersey Devils. Earlier, the Lightning captain was injured in a 6-1 win against the Montreal Canadiens on Tuesday, his third game back after missing 12 with an undisclosed injury. However, before an 8-4 win against the New Jersey Devils on Thursday, Lightning coach Jon Cooper said Hedman was going to get second opinions on this injury.Hedman is considered one of the prominent players of all time as he averages over 21 minutes a game. He has been a franchise cornerstone for more than a decade, including winning the Conn Smythe Trophy as playoff MVP in 2020 during the first of back-to-back title runs.<\/p>\n