Brett Ritchie is headed to the Boston Bruins.

The Boston Bruins have just gotten a little grittier. 

According to a report from National Hockey League insider Renaud Lavoie of TVA Sports it now appears that gritty forward Brett Ritchie is headed to Boston. Ritchie, a lifelong member of the Dallas Stars organization, has reportedly agreed to a very reasonable 1 year deal that will see him earn somewhere in the neighborhood of $1 million as per Lavoie's report.

Ritchie is basically a bottom 6 forward that the Bruins will want to utilize when they want to add a more physical edge to their play style. Now that may not make much sense to fans of the more modern day National Hockey League where speed and skill often appear to trump size and grit, but when you consider the fact that the Bruins lost to a big gritty team in the Stanley Cup Final, I can see why general manager Don Sweeney felt compelled to add some toughness to his roster.

Keeping that in mind fans should not expect the veteran of 241 NHL games to bring much more than that to the line up. Once viewed as a valuable source of secondary scoring Ritchie's offensive production has dropped off drastically over the course of the last 2 seasons. In his most recent campaign for the Stars he appeared in 53 games and recorded 4 goals and 2 assists for a total of 6 points, all the while taking some pretty bad penalties and earning a total of 56 minutes in the box. His one playoff appearance for the Stars resulted in no points, but once again Ritchie found himself in the penalty box.

A low risk addition for the Bruins to be sure but it will be interesting to see if Ritchie can actually contribute something more meaningful than hits and bad penalties to the roster.