A day after sending Aaron Ward to Carolina for what amounted to a little bit of cap room, Boston GM Peter Chiarelli signed free agent defenseman Derek Morris for a one-year, $3.3 million contract. Is Morris an upgrade over Ward? That's debatable. Morris definitely has more offensive capabilities, but we're not exactly talking about an elite point-producer here: he had a combined 20 points last season with the Rangers and Coyotes, and scored 25 points each of the previous two seasons. But Ward's biggest value, in the opinion of many, is that he's a winner, a prototype "glue guy." He's good in the locker room and will do whatever is asked of him. That's not meant as a knock at Morris — who will be 31 season's start, five and a half years younger than Ward — but it seems the Bruins have moved a piece that fit and replaced it with one that is not only an unknown, but at a significantly greater cost, especially when you factor in Patrick Eaves' buyout.