2013 Report Cards: Andrew Ference

Regular Season

Remember back in the old days, when Andrew Ference had durability issues and could never play a full regular season? Yeah, seems like those days are over, at least for now. Ference played all 48 games this season, after racking up 21 for Ceske Budejovice of the Czech league. Through 48 games, he was on pace to have his second-best season scoring-wise yet: he scored four goals (my wallet, drier $200, thanks you, Ference) and nine assists for 13 points. Fun fact: he and Gregory Campbell had the same exact scoring stats through the same number of games played (Campbell didn't miss any games either, because....well, he's Gregory Campbell. Obviously.)

Through 785:57 of 5v5 time in 48 games, Ference was most frequently paired with Adam McQuaid (268:20) and slightly less frequently with Johnny Boychuk or Dennis Seidenberg (186:59 and 142:10, respectively.) While Ference was paired with McQuaid, the team's Goal Percentage/20 was a reasonable 53.8 percent (0.522 goals for per 20 mins vs. 0.447 goals against per 20 minutes.) Comparatively, Zdeno Chara, when paired with his most frequent linemate, Johnny Boychuk, had a 52.2 GF%, and when paired with Seidenberg, that number shoots up to 72.7%. (Ference's with Seidenberg is 71.4%, but we're talking about Ference here, we'll get to the awesomeness that is German Engineering in another post).

Basically: Andrew Ference, when paired with second/third pairing defensemen like himself, was definitely serviceable for the Bruins this year. As a team, they had no garbage fires on defense; this was obvious in the playoffs, when the glut of young successful defensemen created a logjam at that position. When you have a number of players who can do their job about equally well, who do you put in?

Yes, blah blah, he had the worst CorsiOn of the entire defensive corps, but he also had the second worst CorsiRel, and you know who was worse? Epic Playoff Hero Torey Krug. So I have no idea what to tell you there. His four goals were pretty. Here's one:

Suck it, Holtby.

Playoffs:

Ference was injured in game five against Toronto, but made his return against Pittsburgh, bumping Matt Bartkowski back to the press box. He registered two assists and was, as in the regular season, spectacularly average.

Conclusion: C+

Ference didn't really stand out this year as being more awesome or more terrible than usual for him or for the team as a whole. He provided fairly solid third pairing coverage on the back end, especially when paired with Adam McQuaid. Their very moderate success allowed them to spell the first and second pairings for significant minutes without the fear that there'd be a spectacular defensive miscue/fuckup, and that's really exactly what you want from your third pairing.

As a human being, though, we all know Ference gets an A+. Good luck in Edmonton, pal!