Ference was sidelined briefly with an upper-body injury, but returned Thursday night against Buffalo and showed no ill effects.
“It was a short time off, so I just felt normal,” Ference said. “It was just like [taking] a couple days off. I was fine.”
Ference played a regular shift, skating 20 shifts totaling 18:22 of ice time with one shot and one hit, and got a clean bill of health after the contest, which the Bruins dropped 4-2 to the Sabres.
“The training staff told me after the game there were no issues anywhere, so he was fine,” Bruins coach Claude Julien said.
There was one slight adjustment for Ference. His regular partner before the injury had been Adam McQuaid. But McQuaid himself has been a bit banged up of late, so McQuaid was Julien’s choice to come out of the lineup to make room for Ference. That left Ference to open the game with Dennis Seidenberg, though the pairings were fluid and just about all the blueliners saw some time together at different points.
“I had a different partner,” Ference said. “Quaider [McQuaid] and I were playing together a lot before, but that’s about it. We all play together, so it’s almost like nothing [had changed].”
