Tampa Bay Lightning sign Steven Santini, Derrick Pouliot, Tobie Paquette-Bisson

The Tampa Bay Lightning have announced that they’ve signed defensemen Derrick Pouliot, Steven Santini and Tobie Paquette-Bisson to one-year, two-way contracts.

The details regarding the salaries for all three deals have yet to be confirmed.

Pouliot was an unrestricted free agent after the conclusion of his one-year, $775,000 contract that he signed with the Dallas Stars last season. Pouliot got into five games with the Stars where he was held pointless, but primarily played in the AHL with the Texas Stars, where he had 9 goals and 37 assists for 46 points in 64 games.

Santini was an unrestricted free agent after the conclusion of his one-year, $800,000 contract that he signed with the Los Angeles Kings last season. Santini did not get into any games at the NHL level, but he did have 5 goals and 15 assists for 20 points in 64 regular season games with the Ontario Reign in the AHL, and had no points in eight playoff games.

Paquette-Bisson is coming off a season with the Laval Rocket, the AHL affiliate for the Montreal Canadiens, where he had 9 goals and 18 assists for 27 points in 69 games. Paquette-Bisson was playing the season on an AHL-level contract, and has only had an NHL-level contract once before when he had a one-year, $750,000 contract with the Los Angeles Kings for the 2022-23 season.

These signings are three of the four signings that the Lightning have made on the first day of free agency, all being minor deals as the other went to Jesse Ylonen. They did make a big signing the day prior, acquiring the signing rights to Jake Guentzel and signing him to a seven-year contract. They have just under $7 million in projected salary cap space after the signing, with J.J. Moser being the lone restricted free agent on their NHL roster.