Defense surplus prompts Hnidy trade

Faced with a surplus of defensemen after Scott Niedermayer returned last month, the Ducks traded veteran Shane Hnidy to the Boston Bruins for right wing Brandon Bochenski.

The Ducks included their sixth-round pick in the 2008 entry draft in the deal and relinquished their option to exchange fourth-round picks with the Bruins, which was a condition of the trade that sent Stanislav Chistov to Boston last season.

Signed to a two-year free-agent deal in the off-season, Hnidy played in 33 games with the Ducks and totaled one goal, three points and 30 penalty minutes. He had been a healthy scratch in the last six games.

The move has a financial benefit in that it trims $760,000 from the Ducks’ 2008-09 payroll, which is already projected to be near $49 million.

“It’s not healthy for anybody to have eight defensemen,” Ducks assistant general manager Bob Murray said. “We had the opportunity to get a guy who has at times in his career scored some goals in bunches.

“It’s better for Shane. The first thing he said to me was, ‘I didn’t play well here. I let you guys down early on here.’ ”

Murray said Hnidy would get a chance to play for the Bruins because they have many injuries.

Bochenski has 21 goals and 26 points in 101 games with Ottawa, Chicago and Boston during the last two-plus seasons. He had six assists in 20 games with the Bruins this season.

As expected, center Samuel Pahlsson sat out the game because of lingering pain in his abdomen. Pahlsson has missed four straight games and nine in all, the most since the 2002-03 season.

The Ducks are holding out hope that added rest will help make him available for games Friday at home against Chicago and Saturday at Phoenix.

“What we’re trying to do is make sure he can get back to being comfortable playing,” Coach Randy Carlyle said. “Because we’ve got 41 games to play. We don’t want to have the player constantly go back to sick bay.”

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eric.stephens@latimes.com