Aaron Ward was very rarely at a loss for words during his two-plus years with the Boston Bruins, but the verbose blueliner had the sound of someone who had just felt the rug being pulled out from under him on Friday afternoon.

The 36-year-old was thankful, no doubt, that he had been traded to the Carolina Hurricanes for former Boston College winger Pat Eaves and a 2010 fourth-round pick. Ward still makes his summer-time home in a Raleigh/Durham area that features picturesque golf courses, and it's the place that he and his wife decided to raise their three children. Still, he admitted surprise at the sudden relocation.

“I’m a little shocked. Obviously it’s my home, so it’s not a bad place to get traded to. But it wasn’t expected,” said Ward during a Friday afternoon phone call with WEEI.com. “I thought I was actually going to finish out my career in Boston. I didn’t have the best experience in New York. As an athlete I felt like a failure (with the Rangers), and I really felt like I was part of a special experience in Boston.

“But I also understand there’s an economics to the game, and people on the surface will say that it’s a salary dump. But the team is ever-evolving and they’re trying to get younger all the time; there are certain needs. I think when you look further on down the road, you’ll see that Boston (is) trying to acquire something different.”

Several hockey sources have indicated to WEEI.com during the last few weeks that the Bruins had attempted to trade other pieces of the team to make room under the salary cap, but that Ward was the only piece with A) the right price tag at a $2.5 million cap hit for next season and B) enough value as a tried-and-true, big-game, experienced defenseman who would potentially bring back something that B’s GM Peter Chiarelli could work into the team’s salary structure.

With Ward’s contract off the books and Eaves about to be bought out of the two year, $2.8 million contract remaining on his contract by the Bruins, Chiarelli could take anywhere from $2.25-2.5 million off the cap for next season while continuing to wheel and deal for another defenseman and negotiate with unrestricted free agent Phil Kessel. Rumors have indicated that the B's are on the verge of signing Derek Morris, a 30-year-old puck-moving defenseman that the team pursued at the trade deadline last season.

According to Chiarelli, there was a short window of time for the B’s to buy out another contract following Matt Hunwick’s arbitration settlement agreement on Monday, and – if Eaves passes through waivers and the Bruins are able to buy him out -- Chiarelli is now only on the hook for roughly a third of Eaves’ cap hit ($258,000) next season because he’s under 26 years of age.

Even better, in 2010-11, the Bruins will get a salary cap credit of $40,000 per the complex rules of escalating contracts and salary buyouts.

In essence, the money behind the trade was right, as upwards of $2.2 million could be coming off the Boston cap number, and a proven playoff performer like Ward was a wanted commodity around Carolina as well as other hockey spots along the NHL map. 

“With regard to Aaron, I think he’s been a tremendous soldier here, so to speak, with bringing experience, bringing size and strength, bringing a stabilizing presence to our defense,” said Chiarelli during a Friday conference call. “Frankly, I wouldn’t have traded him anywhere else but Carolina because that’s where his home is.

“I really do appreciate the time and service and personality that Aaron has brought to the organization. I do wish him well in his future hockey career, and his career afterward. He may be taking some of your (media) jobs. I feel strongly about Aaron. When we brought him in here, he was really good and he has that element of leadership. In this (cap) system, when you make moves like these, you have to make the correct assumptions that other players are ready to carry on those responsibilities.” 

Chiarelli is obviously assuming that younger defenseman like Mark Stuart and Matt Hunwick are ready to shoulder a bigger part of the defenseman corps load beginning next season, but Chiarelli also indicated that he’s in the market to bring another defenseman into the Black and Gold fold before the summer offseason is out.

Ward understood the logic behind the move, and also hinted that there may be more roster movement to come from the B’s front office.

“I think you have to explore certain options and you go down the line of certain guys that you can trade. I ended up being the guy that was tradable. I know a little bit more background that’s going on,” said Ward. “I’m not at liberty to discuss the facts or what’s going on behind the scenes, but there’s economics involved up there. You still have all kinds of guys on the market that have to be signed and still have to be traded (by the Bruins). So it’s a fact of life.”

Chiarelli said that he could have sent Ward to any other number of NHL teams if the deal was a salary cap dump in the strictest sense, and the 36-year-old and his family were incredibly thankful that he’ll be headed home to Carolina – the place where he won a Stanley Cup in 2006 and enjoyed some of his best individual seasons as a player.

He became something of a moustache-twirling villain among the “Caniacs” when he was on the receiving end of a “cheap shot” from Scott Walker during a highly impassioned seven-game Stanley Cup playoff series between the Canes and Bruins, but Ward wasn’t worried in the least about being received well in his adopted home city.

“In terms of how sports is always looked at as a business, I can’t thank Peter Chiarelli enough for taking into account the fact that I have a family and a three-year-old, a six-year-old and a four-month old,” said Ward, who said he plans to keep playing in the NHL after his current contract is up this season. “For him to take that into consideration what was best for my family, I am indebted to him. I don’t think there’s another general manager around the league necessarily that would look at it from that perspective. I am appreciative that Peter Chiarelli gave me an opportunity post-New York Rangers to be part of something special in Boston.”

Ward did regular media stints with local television and radio markets while playing in Boston and was – without contest – the most quotable of Bruins players. The involvement in so many facets led to many strong ties forged in Boston during a short two-year plus stay, and those ties that bind remained the single toughest thing to walk away from. Ward agreed with the city of Boston, and the city of Boston – in so many ways – agreed right back with an Irish-Canadian defenseman that fit right in with the beer-drinking, Good Will Hunting-quoting fans of the Bruins franchise.

“The toughest emotion is that I have so many solid relationships both in the locker room and away from the game,” said Ward. “I have so many friends that are just Bostonians that I looked to or called this summer just to talk about any number of things. I don’t know. It’s disappointing in some capacity, but it’s another chapter and it’s going to work out well for me here in Carolina.”

So Ward is going home, somewhat reluctantly, to a Carolina Hurricanes team that memorably ended the B’s dreams of a Stanley Cup in Game 7 on the TD Garden ice last spring. While Ward has been extracted from the B’s dressing room and his hard-to-miss vocal style has vanished from one of the corner lockers, the 35-year-old feels like he left behind a big mark in Boston and scored a big assist in helping a storied Original Six achieve relevancy once more in the Hub of Hockey.

“I think being part of something collective where we righted the ship. I obviously don’t feel like I was a big point-scorer or the kind that guy that was putting fannies (in the seats), but I do feel like I was part of making an impact and getting the Bruins back on the map. Being an outsider looking at the Bruins in the past you kind of wondered where that team was going,” said Ward. “To be on an upswing and make the playoffs and this year making the impact that we had on the league – although it ended in a disappointing manner.

“We established and laid the groundwork for the Bruins to be a successful organization going forward. For me, I was part of another Original Six team, I played in an unbelievable sports town. It’s one of those things where I get to say I played in Boston and experienced the Bostonian-style fan following that you can only understand when you live through it.”