BOSTON — In just his second game back from a groin injury that kept him out a month and will require surgery after the season, Bruins defenseman Andrew Ference logged 18:41 of ice time and assisted on the Bruins’ first goal in a 2-1 win over the New York Rangers Sunday at TD Garden.

With the game scoreless, Ference skated up from his position at the left point to the bottom of the circle and fed a cross-ice pass to Miroslav Satan, who one-timed the puck into the net.

“I wasn’t really taking passes clean the whole from Johnny (Boychuk) , so their guy actually almost intercepted the D-to-D pass, so I was backing out just in case he got it,” explained Ference. “And then their guy kind of reached for it, which put him out of position. We had hit about 10 shin pads before that, and so sometimes you catch a glimpse of when your guy’s off the backside and it just worked out well.”

It worked out well also that Ference was in top form in his own end. The Bruins had to kill six minutes of shorthanded situations that featured captain Zdeno Chara in the box. Chara and Dennis Wideman were called for consecutive minors late in the first period, and then Chara was whistled for a double-minor for high sticking in the second session. Boston extinguished all the Rangers’ power play — six in all.

“I think the penalty kill obviously was important, because they had a few chances,” said Ference. “But that four-minute one, and that little bit of a two-man advantage we had, those are really big momentum builders for us. You could hear the guys on the bench rallying behind those, so it was good because we didn’t have a whole as far as power play to get our team all fired up.”

(Click here for more on the Bruins’ PK.)

Matt Hunwick, who has struggled this season, was the healthy scratch against the Rangers and Wideman has also had a difficult time finding his game. A healthy Ference would go a long way toward making the Bruins’ final 11 games a successful stretch.

“As long as I can skate, that’s the only thing that matters,” Ference said. “So far, it’s holding up.”