All you need to do is watch a Bruins game to know that defenseman Andrew Ference is the ultimate team player. 

Though he only stands at 5-foot-11, Ference is guaranteed to stick up for his teammates on the ice no matter the cost. If a Bruin is the recipient of a hit Ference doesn’t like, the alternate captain will try to drop the gloves with the aggressor without fail. 

But that isn’t all Ference brings when it comes to keeping his team together. A year after purchasing an old Bruins windbreaker on eBay that the team used as its nightly gold star after playoff wins, Ference got a little more creative for the 2011-12 postseason. The chain that Chris Kelly sported following his Game 1 overtime winner was the work of Ference. In fact, it was literally the work of Ference. 

“I did that,” Ference said Friday when asked who he got to engrave the Bruins’ logo into the padlock on the gigantic chain. “I bought an engraving kit and I was sitting at my kitchen table, trying to learn how to engrave on the fly.”

The chain has 20 links, one for each player in the lineup, and is symbolic of the team having 20 strong links. Last year’s jacket didn’t have anything special other than the Bruins’ logo, but it took on a bigger meaning when the Bruins made Nathan Horton the recipient of it after he was lost for the postseason in Game 3 of the Stanley Cup finals. 

“[The chain] is something for fun, but you don't want to put too much meaning into it. It's not that important," he said with a laugh. "It's not really this big rallying point. I think last year with the jacket, it became kind of more than it was meant to be, with Horty and stuff like that, with the way the circumstances worked out with his injury and giving it out.”

So why was it Ference who chose the playoff’s article of clothing once again?

“Apparently I have too much time on my hands,” Ference said. “Nobody else knows how to use the Internet.”

It was actually on eBay where Ference originally found a padlock that he thought was perfect for the project. The defenseman said it, “had a bear on it and everything,” but it had already sold. That led to Ference engraving a padlock himself. 

“I think Andrew thrives on those kinds of things,” Claude Julien said. “It goes back to personalities in the dressing room. There’s different personalities and at the same time, we’ve said that all along and we keep saying it – we’ve got great 

“Our guys respect each other for who they are and once the puck is dropped we’re one team and we work for each other. Andrew has been one of those guys that’s a real deep thinker and finds things that will bode well with what we’re trying to accomplish here. He’s heard us talk all year long about the fact that it’s important not to have any weak links. So, he decided to take that theme upon himself and on that chain.”

NHL BLOWS IT WITH LACK OF SUSPENSION

If you were watching the final seconds of Game 1 of the Western Conference quarterfinals between the Predators and the Red Wings, you probably had one thought: What was Shea Weber thinking?

The next day, when the discipline was handed down, you probably had another thought: What was Brendan Shanahan thinking?

Weber repeatedly slammed Detroit forward Henrik Zetterberg’s head into the glass at the end of the Predators’ 3-2 win. Somehow, he wasn’t suspended.

"We felt this was a reckless and reactionary play on which Weber threw a glancing punch and then shoved Zetterberg's head into the glass," Shanahan said in the very same statement that he announced just a $2,500 fine for Weber.

It was a mere slap on the wrist, and a league was confused. In a day and age in which head injuries are such a concern, it should have been an easy decision to give Weber a game or two. The hockey world has responded by turning “Webering” into the next “Tebowing.” Even his teammates are doing it. 

Shanahan, who hasn’t been afraid to suspend players in his first year on the job as league disciplinarian, really dropped the ball on this one. He could have sent a message to the entire league that though emotions run high in the playoffs, such behavior won’t go unpunished. He could have rightfully left Nashville without their best player and this season’s best defenseman for at least a game, and it wouldn’t have happened again. 

TOO MANY NO. 1’S IN EDMONTON

This week, the Oilers shocked the portion of the league not currently competing when they won the lottery for the NHL draft. That means that that after finishing with the second-worst record in the league (only Columbus was worse), Steve Tambellini and the Oilers will hold the first selection in the draft for the third consecutive year. 

That’s great for the Oilers, as they have landed stars in Taylor Hall (it looks like they made the right choice there) and Ryan Nugent-Hopkins. The problem is that the team might not necessarily be better off by taking the best player in the draft this year. 

That would be Nail Yakupov. The Sarnia Sting (Ontario Hockey League) right wing is supposed to be the next great young scorer, and it sure would be enticing to add him to a group of forwards that already includes Hall, Nugent-Hopkins and Jordan Eberle. It wouldn’t be the right move though. 

The Oilers should play the part and act like they’re set to take Yakupov, but in the end the best move would be to slide down a spot or two and go for defense. Everett (Western Hockey League) defenseman Ryan Murray is by all accounts a sound all-around blueliner, and his addition could help the offensively gifted but defensively treacherous Oilers actually start to turn it around. 

Edmonton finished 28th and 23rd in the league with 3.17 and 2.83 goals against per game, respectively, in 2010-11 and 2011-12. As their young offensive stars become some of the best forwards in the game, their scoring won’t be a problem for anyone but opponents. It’s their defense that needs fixing, and that should be the move on draft day. 

Plus, could you imagine trying to stay under the cap in three, four, five years with that many scorers? Tambellini can make his team better and his job easier by just going for defense. Maybe then he won’t find himself picking first again next June.