Derek Morris

The Boston Bruins opened the final day before the trade deadline tied with the New York Rangers with 65 points for the No. 8 spot in the Eastern Conference, and general manager Peter Chiarelli has already been busy Wednesday morning, making a pair of deals to help get his team back into the postseason. After sending Derek Morris to the Phoenix Coyotes -- for a 2011 fourth-round draft pick -- in a cap clearing move, the Bruins dealt Byron Bitz, Craig Weller and a second-round pick to the Florida Panthers for shot-blocking defenseman Dennis Seidenberg (pictured) and Matt Bartkowski. The 28-year-old Seidenberg is one of the league's best shot blockers, leading the NHL with 179 -- 26 more than the No. 2 player on the list, Andy Sutton. While he's probably an upgrade over Morris on the blue line, this trade does little to remedy Boston's biggest issue: goal-scoring. The Bruins are the lowest-scoring team in the NHL with just 150 goals. Swapping Morris for Seidenberg does leave Boston with some extra salary cap room, and with still over three hours before the deadline there's still time to add something up front. For the Panthers, it's yet another draft pick thrown into the pool, while they also get Bitz, a hulking 25-year-old forward who's not afraid to throw his weight around or drop the gloves. Florida has acquired three second-round picks over the past three weeks, and with Seidenberg and Jordan Leopold already shipped out, all eyes are now on goaltender Tomas Vokoun. The other team in this mix is Phoenix, which acquired Morris for, let's be honest, next-to-nothing. Considering the going rate for rent-a-vets leading up to the deadline, a fourth-round pick in 2011 is a pretty sweet deal for a team that nobody pictured as a buyer at the start of the season. Morris has previously spent parts of five seasons with the Coyotes and was traded to the Rangers at last year's deadline for Dmitri Kalanin, Nigel Dawes and Petr Prucha.