Goodbye Derek

We pretty much knew this was coming - but now it is official.

Derek Morris' 18 game career with the New York Rangers has come to an end. The 30 year old Unrestricted Free Agent defenseman has signed a one year contract for $3.3 million with the Boston Bruins.

Morris will fill a gap in the Bruin's defense created when they traded away Aaron Ward, another former Ranger, on Friday.

Morris, in 18 games as a New York Ranger added, um, no goals and 8 assists in 18 regular season games. In the Playoffs he added another 2 assists - not a small feat in our low scoring playoff team. Despite the 2 assists though, he was minus 2 in 7 games against the Caps.

The Rangers should have no trouble replacing his zero goals. But it does make us less experienced on defense. We also get younger - which is part of Tortorella's and Sather's master plan. At least we hope there is a master plan and that this fits in to it.

The Rangers still have Redden and Rozsival, their too highly (over) piad defenseman. But with Mara and Morris gone, they had shed their medium priced defenders. After Red & Roz, the next highest paid defenseman is Dan Giradi at $1.55 million.

Anyway - it was a brief stay, Derek, but thanks for wearing the Ranger colors, and doing your best to adjust quickly to a new team. Boss-town is the 5th stop for Morris after Calgary, Colorado, Phoenix, and of course New York.

If it's any consolation, on the Bruin's message boards we're seeing fans complaining that they overpaid for Morris, despit his salary coming down from $3.9 million the year before. But that's not our problem anymore. Best of luck, Derek.