The banged-up Bruins could be getting back a key contributor in Andrew Ference, as general manager Peter Chiarelli announced on Monday in a conference call that the defenseman is likely to play on Thursday night. Ference has been out since March 27 with a groin injury/hernia.
While Ference has not scored a goal this season and has just eight assists, the numbers are a bit startling with him out of the lineup, as the Bruins were 11-14-6 when Ference wasn't playing. That number could be mere coincidence, but getting Ference back on the blue line while Dennis Seidenberg is out can only help the Bruins.
Chiarelli also said that Mark Stuart will likely not play in the first two games of the series and could miss the entire series with his pinkie injury. Not surprisingly, Marc Savard and Seidenberg are also not expected to be able to play against Buffalo.
The Bruins finished the year with 191 man games lost due to injury. While the quality of those lost man games may have been more serious (Savard missed 41 games, Milan Lucic missed 32, Ference missed 31, Stuart missed 26, Patrice Bergeron missed eight), the quantity is not as many as previous year's. The Bruins' man games lost to injury since the 2005-06 season are below:
2009-10: 191
2008-09: 230
2007-08: 364
2006-07: 162
2005-06: 403
