TAMPA BAY – The Tampa Bay Lightning have signed defenseman Charle-Edouard D’Astous to a one-year, one-way contract extension worth an AAV of $875,000, Vice President and General Manager Julien BriseBois announced today.
D’Astous has played in 33 games for the Lightning this season, recording three goals, including two game-winners, and 13 points while averaging 19:05 of time on ice. He ranks third among all Bolts defensemen for points, blocked shots (34) and hits (37) and is tied for first for game-winning goals. D’Astous made his NHL debut on October 25 versus Anaheim and scored his first NHL goal two games later on October 28 at Nashville.
A native of Rimouski, Quebec, D’Astous skated in 49 games with Brynäs IF of the Swedish Hockey League last season and was named the SHL Defenseman of the Year after recording 12 goals and 39 points with a plus-26 rating. Helping lead his club to a first-place finish in the regular season before falling to Luleå HF in the Swedish Championship Final, D’Astous finished the regular season tied for second for goals and points among all SHL defensemen while ranking first for penalty minutes (67), second for plus/minus (plus-26) and fifth for assists (27). During the postseason, D’Astous skated in all 17 contests for Brynäs IF and led all SHL D-men with four goals and 38 penalty minutes. He finished the playoffs with eight points and a plus-7 rating, both of which were tied for the second-most among all SHL defensemen.
Prior to his time in Sweden, D’Astous spent the previous two seasons from 2022-24 with KooKoo of the Finnish Elite League. Over the course of 110 games in Finland, D’Astous recorded 24 goals and 69 points, leading all KooKoo defensemen for goals (tied in 2022-23), assists and points in each of his two seasons. In 2023-24, he received the Pekka Rautakallio Award as the League’s best defenseman, along with the Juha Rantasila Trophy as the League’s leading goal scorer among defenders.
D’Astous, 27, has played parts of four seasons of professional hockey in North America, appearing in 27 American Hockey League games between the Syracuse Crunch, Grand Rapids Griffins and Colorado Eagles, recording three goals and nine points, as well as skating in 98 ECHL contests between the Toledo Walleye and Utah Grizzlies, logging 29 goals and 79 points. The 6-foot-2, 211-pound defenseman scored 26 goals with Utah in 2021-22 to lead all ECHL D-men and was named the League’s defenseman of the year.
He was signed to a one-year, two-way contract by the Lightning as a free agent on May 5, 2025.
