The Edmonton Oilers are continuing their pursuit of an Andrej Sekera replacement. The team announced today that they’ve signed veteran defender Jason Garrison to a professional tryout offer to attend training camp.
The #Oilers have signed Jason Garrison to a professional tryout. The veteran defenceman has played 538 @NHL regular season games over 10 seasons, recording 159 points (48G, 111A) along with a +22 rating. pic.twitter.com/wN4dGI3D5B
— Edmonton Oilers (@EdmontonOilers) August 28, 2018
Garrison is a left-handed shooting defenseman who most recently played for the Vegas Golden Knights. During his prime, Garrison was a very solid two-way defender with a booming shot from the point on the power play. That said, it’s been a few years since Garrison was a high-quality player at the NHL level.
The Tampa Bay Lightning gave the Vegas Golden Knights a second-round pick in order to take on his contract at the expansion draft in 2017. With Vegas, Garrison only appeared in eight games as the Golden Knights buried his cap hit in the AHL for the majority of the season.
Still, this is a decent flyer for the Oilers to take on a defenceman who could potentially help them out on the power play. A few years back, Garrison was one of the league’s better offensive producers from the point, so the Oilers could potentially use him in a limited, sheltered special teams role.
Ultimately this doesn’t cost the team anything so there’s no risk in bringing Garisson into camp to see if he has anything left. He’ll be competing with Jakub Jerabek and Kevin Gravel for the final roles on the blueline, though those two have the upper hand because they’re already signed to contracts.
Nice! Can’t hurt!
He’s a career plus+ player.
The Oilers can make short work of that (useless “stat” that it is).
You asked for a PTO Dman, you got it! Up next bridge contract!
It would appear Peter, that you learned from your mistake from last season. Instead of relying on rookies, you’re relying on vets, allowing the rookies to develop their game in Bakersfield. I’m proud of you man!
Too bad he’s not a RHD.
Would have rather seen Franson, who is not as good defensively, just as slow but is a much better PP QB and is the right shot needed to bridge a year to Bouchard and Bear.
What are you basing that on? Franson had one decent year in TO a long time ago. He’s awful and can’t play in the NHL anymore.
Sorry to break it to you guys, Garrison can’t either. Thus the PTO. I hope they don’t sign him and put him in the AHL ahead of the prospects that need ice time.
Franson didn’t want to sign with us last year, why would he sign this year?
If bringing in a hungry vet to breath down the necks of a few young kids helps push the young guys a little harder, then perfect.
Exactly. Seeing Garrison in a Vegas uniform should remind us what motivated veteran players can do.
He’s only 33 so hopefully still able to contribute.
Yeah, nothing to lose here for the Oilers.
Maybe he pushes the others in training camp to be better, but he’s not gonna be on the team.
He could be a bonus for the Condors, playing behind Oilers d-prospects in the line-up, but showing them how to be steady pro hockey players. As long as Woodcroft coaches to develop NHL prospects, not to have veteran AHL’ers play heavy minutes, veterans are important role models at all levels of hockey.
As long as they don’t have these players lingering around the fringes for too long I’m ok with it.
Man oilers are such a garbage team. Another PTO??? That must be a recorded. Funny how so many dummies on here think it’s a good thing. More PTO’s but Nurse still goes unsigned.
Now where is that big mouth originalpouzer, can that guy ever nag. Reads a couple of articles and then just repeats everything he reads.
Actually this is quite clever if you think on it. It allows us to find a viable replacement for the injured Sekera, offers 0 risk to Edmonton, allows the current squad to breathe a little easier, and allows us to keep the youngsters in the minors instead of relying on them. Or, you know, we could do what we did last year.
That was as heroic of a response to trolling I’ve seen in a while. Thanks Alex.
Not a problem man. Just trying to keep the positive vibes going as the season approaches.
Sign Nurse already
Hmm. Not agreeing with the dude above. Just want Nurse. Pto’s are a Good thing. Anyone heard of a team called Vegas where no one wanted thier players! Think about it%
Interesting move that could bring even more competition for the rookies.
Garrison & Reinhart couldn’t make the knights last year. Should tell you all you need to know. Molasses in January basically sums up the speed of these two.
Knights were good a good team last year fam
Seems like we are fleshing out NHL Veteran content for pre-season games… Garrison has what, a 5% chance of playing after the pre-season with our current contract situation?
So… other than the fall of 1979, has there ever been an Oilers’ training camp with so many established and not-as-established professional players coming to “try out?” I may be way off on this (and I’ll defer to anyone who knows better), but I can’t remember a year when there’s been so many guys coming in on PTOs.
The thing about Garrison I’m wondering – was he put in the AHL because of his cap hit or because he can’t play in the NHL … or both?
The Knights were a strange team last year. They got a lot of voodoo magic out of their forwards and a lot of their defencemen stepped up. My guess is when they took Garrison off of Tampa’s hands, they figured they’d need him more than they ended up needing him and he got into a “numbers” game. But I don’t know if it was “numbers” as in “there were a number of defencemen better than him” or “there were too many numbers on his contract to justify keeping him in the third pairing or the press box.”
Here’s hoping it was the latter.
Solid bet, nonetheless. Gotta say – you can’t fault Chiarelli for the little bets he’s made this summer.
If you look at Chia’s GM record, he’s pretty successful at little bets.
It’s the bigger bets where he blows it. Nothing to lose with offering Garrison a PTO.
Garrison was once a member of the Vancouver Canucks. He’s got a good shot from the point, but may lack on the defensive side. At 33, there should be something left in the tank. Good PTO.