More unpleasant memories

Jokinen, starring for Karpat during the lockout season, said he pumped a winning overtime goal past Thomas, who was tending goal for Jokerit. Thomas doesn't remember if that way.

"I remember one game, we lost, 1-0, against them," Thomas said before the Hurricanes rubbed out the Bruins, 3-2, in overtime last night. "I don't know if that's the one he's talking about or not."

By his best recollection, Thomas said it was ex-Bruin Petr Tenkrat, last seen in Boston during the dark 2006-07 season, who beat him in overtime during the Karpat-Jokerit showdown.

"In some of the old pads, there's a hole right there," said Thomas, crouching into a butterfly and pointing at the top of his left pad. "Petr Tenkrat's shot went through that hole."

After last night, there is evidence that Jokinen has scored at least one OT winner against his ex-teammate. At 2:48, Jokinen slipped the puck behind Thomas to give Carolina a 2-1 edge in the best-of-seven series.

"I didn't see anything after [Sergei ] Samsonov went to the backhand," Thomas said. "He pulled it behind traffic. I knew he was going to shoot. But I never saw it. I didn't even pick it up. I saw the stick swing. That's the time period where I tried to find the puck. I never saw the puck until it was in."

Ference, slow to skate off the ice after the hit, stood on the bench with trainer Don DelNegro at his side. Ference shook out his left leg and favored his groin area. At 2:49 of the second period, during a stoppage, Ference skated off the bench and headed to the dressing room for treatment. Ference emerged from the room at 6:05 and returned to the bench at 8:09.

But after taking two more shifts in the second period, including one on the power play, Ference shut it down for the rest of the night. Ference never came out for the third period or overtime, perhaps aggravating the lower-body injury that sidelined him for the first round of the playoffs.

The defenseman most affected by Ference's loss was Mark Stuart, who took over many of his shifts alongside Dennis Wideman. Stuart, usually a third-pairing defenseman, skated 34 shifts for 24:34 of ice time, second-most for the Bruins behind Wideman (28:31) and Zdeno Chara (25:10).

"We had to deal with the situation," said coach Claude Julien. "You lose a player during a game, that means that other players have to step up and do the job, which I thought they did. It's unfortunate, but losing a quality defenseman like Andrew certainly didn't help our cause."

If Ference (13 shifts, 7:19 of ice time) is unable to play tomorrow, Shane Hnidy, a healthy scratch for the first three games, would enter the lineup.

"Great. It was great," said Sturm of hitting the ice yesterday morning, only the second time he's skated since shredding his left knee Dec. 18. "It's just nice to be back on the ice and feel the ice again."

Sturm was joined by Hunwick, who also has been skating the last two days for the first time since Game 1 of the first round of the playoffs because of a ruptured spleen.

"It's just fun to get out there, mess around a little bit, and kind of feeling like you're getting back in the swing of things," Hunwick said. "Even if it's just skating around, nothing too difficult."

Sturm said the flexibility around his knee is good, but noted he's lost a lot of strength in the area. Sturm has not been doing any hard skating or stops and starts.

Hunwick also has not been pushing himself hard on the ice. Yesterday, Hunwick skated until his heart rate peaked at 160 beats per minute.

"One of the more difficult things at this point is that it's easier to get it up to a certain point," Hunwick said. "It's a little bit harder to get it back down. Those are two different things. But every day, it gets a little bit better."

Off the ice, Hunwick has been riding the bike and lifting weights. Because his incision is healing, Hunwick has reintroduced rotational exercises to build back his core.

Fluto Shinzawa can be reached at fshinzawa@globe.com.