{"id":545612,"date":"2026-03-26T03:28:11","date_gmt":"2026-03-26T03:28:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/545612\/"},"modified":"2026-03-26T03:28:11","modified_gmt":"2026-03-26T03:28:11","slug":"victor-hedman-takes-temporary-leave-from-lightning-for-personal-reasons","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/545612\/","title":{"rendered":"Victor Hedman takes temporary leave from Lightning for personal reasons"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Victor<\/p>\n

Victor Hedman will be away from the Lightning for an undefined period of time. Patrick Smith \/ Getty Images<\/p>\n

March 25, 2026Updated 6:53 pm EDT<\/p>\n

Victor Hedman is taking a temporary leave from the Tampa Bay Lightning for \u201cpersonal reasons,\u201d the team announced Wednesday.<\/p>\n

The Lightning\u2019s 35-year-old captain missed their last three games after leaving a March 19 win over the Vancouver Canucks in the first period due to illness.<\/p>\n

In the announcement<\/a>, the Lightning said that \u201cno further details will be shared\u201d and asked that Hedman\u2019s privacy be respected.<\/p>\n

Hedman, a six-time finalist for the Norris Trophy as the NHL\u2019s top defenseman, has played in only 33 of the Lightning\u2019s 70 games in 2025-26. He missed 23 games \u2014 approximately seven weeks \u2014 after elbow surgery in December. Hedman returned to the Lightning\u2019s lineup on Feb. 1 but was also limited for Sweden at the Olympics; a lower-body injury forced him to watch their quarterfinal loss to the United States from the bench.<\/p>\n

The Lightning have performed well with Hedman and without him, thanks in part to NHL scoring leader Nikita Kucherov and a breakout season by defenseman Darren Raddysh. They began Wednesday in second place in the Atlantic Division with 93 points, 2 points behind the Buffalo Sabres, and will next face the Seattle Kraken on Thursday.<\/p>\n

\"Connections:\"Connections:<\/p>\n

Mar 26, 2026<\/p>\n

Connections: Sports Edition<\/p>\n

Spot the pattern. Connect the terms<\/p>\n

Find the hidden link between sports terms<\/p>\n

Play today’s puzzle<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Victor Hedman will be away from the Lightning for an undefined period of time. Patrick Smith \/ Getty…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":545613,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[66],"tags":[385,99,4819],"class_list":["post-545612","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nhl","tag-nhl","tag-sports","tag-tampa-bay-lightning"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/545612","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=545612"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/545612\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/545613"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=545612"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=545612"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=545612"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}