BOSTON -- The 2010 trade deadline passed at 3 p.m. Wednesday, and all the worst offensive team in the league did was ship out a 31-year-old puck-moving defenseman who was one of the better performers on an average power play and brought in a 28-year-old puck-mover with little offensive upside.

Christmas in March it was not.

In a pair of deadline-day trades, the Boston Bruins shipped Derek Morris to the Phoenix Coyotes for a conditional fourth-round pick. Then they acquired Dennis Seidenberg and a prospect from Florida for Byron Bitz, a minor leaguer and Tampa Bay's second-round pick this June.


When he addressed the media Wednesday afternoon, Bruins general manager Peter Chiarelli knew he would be grilled about his inability to add scoring.

"I guess what you have to look at, what we looked at, is first we wanted to change the composition of our defense. I can say that was an equal priority to scoring," Chiarelli said. "And I put it as an equal priority because I feel if we change the composition of our defense, that will in itself allow us to improve from the back end out and should result in better offensive production. It allows defensemen to play in their appropriate roles and positions."

Of course, those guys playing those roles and positions are still named Matt Hunwick and Andrew Ference. On most nights, Tuesday's 4-1 loss to Montreal aside, Morris was one of the few stabilizing forces on defense not named Zdeno Chara. Trading Morris and inserting Seidenberg might upgrade the Bruins a hair, but does nothing to change the abyss that is the defense corps beyond the top two. If Chiarelli had been able to add Seidenberg and keep Morris, then he would have had something. But salary-cap restraints and the idea that he might be able to rope in one of eight available forwards on the Bruins' target board led Chiarelli to make the moves he did.

What Chiarelli failed to explain is how the Seidenberg-Morris swap is going to suddenly turn Blake Wheeler, Michael Ryder, Mark Recchi and Daniel Paille into finishers. Last time I looked, the Bruins were having no problem generating scoring chances on their power play and 5-on-5. Last time I listened, coach Claude Julien said just that after Tuesday's loss. And last time I read, Marc Savard went on record over the weekend to say he wanted the Bruins to add a winger who could score. (Who could blame him?)

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