B's underwhelm at trade deadline

Even though the Bruins' final 21 games of the regular season come in rapid succession, this might be a long month-and-a-half for hockey in the Hub.

The 2010 NHL trade deadline has come and gone. The Bruins sent defenseman Derek Morris back to where he spent five seasons (Phoenix) and acquired another defenseman in the form of Dennis Seidenberg from the Panthers.

Boston receives a conditional fourth-round pick for Morris (with the condition being a third-round choice if the Coyotes resign him) in 2011. Forward Byron Bitz, minor league forward Craig Weller and a 2010 second-round draft choice (the same pick  Boston acquired from Tampa last year in the deadline deal for Mark Recchi) head to Florida.

Let’s review this for a second — in two transactions, Boston traded Morris, Bitz, Weller and a second-round pick basically for Seidenberg and a fourth-round selection and the rights to Ohio State defenseman Matt Bartkowski. The Bruins saved about a million dollars in cap space between Morris’ contract ($3.3 million) and Seidenberg’s ($2.25 million).

That does not seem like a successful day for general manager Peter Chiarelli and his staff. They probably know it, too.

Chiarelli held a press conference after the deadline passed to explain what had happened and what his thoughts were. He was not defeated, but he seemed a little frustrated and spoke like a man who knew that he was about to take a beating from fans and media alike.

“I am going to get this right out there because I know a lot of the questions will be ‘Why didn’t you get a scorer?’ ” Chiarelli said in his opening statement. “Those are good questions. We wanted to change the composition of our defense. I would say that was an equal priority to scoring, to getting more scoring.”

Without coming out and saying it straight, Chiarelli more or less admitted that the signing of Morris last summer was a mistake.

“When it was available to us that we could acquire a player like Dennis Seidenberg — left shot, plays the right side, strong, physical defenseman and moves the puck, very strong — we thought it would be a better matchup,” Chiarelli said. “Whether or not he plays with [Chara], which he should very shortly when he gets acclimated.”

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It should not be overlooked that Seidenberg was an unrestricted free agent last year and ended up signing for less than Morris did, though he is arguably the better player of the two. So, why not just go out and sign Seidenberg last summer instead of jumping through hoops at the deadline?

In retrospect, Chiarelli would likely ask for a mulligan on the Morris signing, especially if he knew at the time that he would not play well on the first pairing with Chara like he was expected to.

“Yeah we did, yeah we did,” Chiarelli said in answer to a question about whether the Bruins considered Seidenberg last summer. “I had a brief discussion with JP, his agent … hindsight is 20/20. He has had a tremendous year in Florida and he has really improved.”

But really, this is not about what Chiarelli was able to do at the deadline, it is about what he was not.

Whatever happened to the “top-nine forward” type he was looking for? He admitted he was in on a series of talks, and his team had targeted eight different players, two of which were not traded. A reasonable guess on some of those forwards would be Raffi Torres (traded to Buffalo) and Alexei Ponikarovsky (to Pittsburgh). The Hurricanes Ray Whitney was probably on the table, but became prohibitive because he wanted a three-year contract extension from the team he was traded to.

Chiarelli did let one name slip — Wotjek Wolski. If the Bruins had acquired Wolski it would have been the type of move that is right up Chiarelli’s alley — acquiring former first-round draft picks to stock the ranks of his club.

Wolski was drafted in the first round (21st overall) in 2004, the same year that current Bruin Blake Wheeler was drafted fifth. Wolski has come of age faster than Wheeler after jumping from the Canadian juniors (Brampton Battalion of