Lightning’s Victor Hedman leaves game against Canadiens with injury

The Tampa Bay Lightning have announced that defenseman Victor Hedman sustained an injury during Tuesday’s game against the Montreal Canadiens and will not return to the game.

At this point in time, it’s unclear what the cause of the injury was. Hedman had played the entirety of the first period of the game, but then did not take a shift in the second period, with the Lightning confirming his departure from the game late in the second.

This was just Hedman’s third game back in the lineup after previously missing 12 games with an undisclosed injury. It’s unclear if he’s dealing with the same injury, but it wouldn’t be a surprise.

The Lightning were already up 3-0 by the time of his last shift, and had a 4-1 lead when they confirmed his departure, so it’s possibly that he tweaked something minor, and the team decided to keep him out of the lineup for precautionary reasons with the game mostly decided. Tampa Bay doesn’t play again until Thursday against the New Jersey Devils in Newark, so we’ll either get a more specific update after Tuesday’s game, on Wednesday if the team holds a practice, on Thursday during morning skate or before the game if he’s a game-time decision.

Hedman left the game with one shot on goal in 6:14 of ice time, with the Lightning going on to beat the Canadiens 6-1.

With Hedman out of the game, his defense partner, Maxwell Crozier, spent the rest of the game rotating with Darren Raddysh and Emil Lilleberg on the other two pairings, playing alongside J.J. Moser and Charle-Edouard D’Astous.

Hedman has been good when he’s been healthy, as even though he has no goals on the year, he has 12 assists in the 18 games he’s played.

Should Hedman miss any more game action, the Lightning will need to recall a defenseman from their AHL affiliate, the Syracuse Crunch, to replace him, as they had not other healthy defensemen in the lineup. Declan Carlile and Steven Santini were recently on the NHL roster before Hedman had returned to the lineup. Ryan McDonagh and Erik Cernak, who are also injured, could be potential options if either of them are healthy.