It was no surprise that Panthers’ general manager Randy Sexton was going to be a seller by this NHL trade deadline day. It was even more obvious that he was going to deal impending free-agents; such as F Dominic Moore, D Jordan Leopold, and D Dennis Seidenberg.

The Bruins picked-up the 6’1″ 210 lb. Seidenberg — along with Matthew Bartowski in exchange for a second-round pick in 2010 [from Tampa Bay] Byron Bitz, Craig Weller [who was acquired in the Chuck Kobasew trade back in Oct.] — shortly after trading away their own impending UFA, Derek Morris.

George Richards,  the Florida Panthers beat-writer at the Miami Herald, wrote some interesting tidbits on Seidenberg’s existing contract. Here’s an excerpt from On Frozen Blog:

“Seidenberg signed with the Panthers in the first week of training camp when the team was in Nova Scotia. His contract was structured so that he got $1 million in base salary and a $1.25 million bonus on June 30. That $1.25 million — plus whatever is left of the $1 million — now belongs to the Bruins.

Now that’s a Saveology Save!

“That was another big reason they wanted to get rid of me,” Seidenberg said. “They wanted to get rid of the money, and Boston, I guess, made a big commitment to pick up such a big amount of money for 20 games and hopefully maybe more. Maybe they plan on resigning me. I don’t know. I don’t know what’s going to happen.””

So even though just under one-quarter of the 2009-10 NHL season remains, Peter Chiarelli and the B’s are in fact on the hook for over half of Seidenberg’s contract. No pressure to re-sign him on Jul. 1 now, eh?