Canucks trade Jason Garrison to Tampa Bay

Fantasy Impact: The Vancouver Canucks have traded defenseman Jason Garrison and prospect Jeff Costello to Tampa Bay for the 50th overall draft pick in this weekend’s NHL Entry Draft.

The Canucks get: a lot of cap relief (especially when combined with the Kesler deal) and a very good draft pick.

The Lightning get: a solid defenseman with a knack for blocking shots…and who has a rather wicked one of his own. Garrison is definitely overrated when it comes to his offense (though admittedly underrated defensively). However, he couldn’t have found a better team to go to. The high-flying Lightning have offense coming out of all orifaces and they have one of the best up-and-coming offensive rearguards in the business. But since Victor Hedman and Garrison are both left-handed shots, you unfortunately won’t see them paired on the power play.

Jeff Costello is a hard-nosed winger, who just finished his last season at Notre Dame. Not much upside, but could make it on the fourth line.

Fantasy Players Impacted: With Garrison out of the mix in Vancouver and with Luca Sbisa pretty injury prone, I’m thinking Dan Hamhuis and Kevin Bieksa get improved power play time . A new coach will determine this of course, and the team does still have Alex Edler, but Garrison was seeing nearly three minutes of PP time to Hamhuis and Bieksa’s two minutes.

This really hurts Mark Barberio. He’s also a left-handed shot, so he’s now the fourth man on the totem pole when it comes to the power play (Matt Carle is also a lefty).