According to TSN’s Bob McKenzie, the Edmonton Oilers have signed defenceman Jason Garrison to a one-year contract with a cap hit of $650,000. 

With the way the pre-season played out and the fact that Jakub Jerabek was traded to the St. Louis Blues yesterday, it’s not overly surprising that the Oilers decided to ink Jason Garrison to a one-year deal. After coming in on a PTO in late August, Garrison has provided the team with the steady third-pairing defence that they were expecting from Jerabek and that consistency in play and effort ended up translating into a contract. In four pre-season games played, Garrison didn’t post any points for the club, but, as I mentioned, he was reasonably steady and unnoticeable which is exactly what you want from your bottom pairing guys.

Though he’s no longer close to being the player that once scored 16 goals for the Florida Panthers, Garrison can still provide a veteran presence in the dressing room with the ability to jump into the lineup when needed. What will be interesting to watch as the season plays out is exactly how much Garrison plays and what with usage. The guy has a very strong shot from the back end and a decent first pass out of the zone, but his skating is a struggle at this point so he will have to rely on positioning if he’s going to succeed.

If you’re a fan of the fancy stats, then I don’t recommend that you look up Garrison’s possession numbers as there is nothing in there that you’ll like. According to Corsica, Garrison hasn’t had positive possession numbers even once in the past three years despite having reasonably even zone starts. That said, I’m guessing this is a guy that will be in and out of the lineup in a similar role to what Eric Gryba had in the past so I see this signing as a reasonable, albeit unspectacular, gamble on the blue line. Now, we wait to see if Chiarelli also gave him a no-movement clause. I keed, I keed… maybe.

In 2017-18, Garrison played in only eight games with the Golden Knights, registering one assist and four penalty minutes. What do you guys think?