TAYLOR
I was a bleary-eyed mess as I stepped onto the ice for warmups that night.
Pregame nap? Barely slept. Last night? Didn’t sleep nearly enough. On the plane? Less than an hour.
And now I had to pull off eighteen to twenty minutes of ice time. Fuck my life.
We needed to be on our toes tonight, too. Calgary was coming into tonight after back-to-back losses, and they’d beenembarrassinglosses. Scarborough had stomped them 5-1 the night before last, and two nights earlier, Champlain had shut them out. They’d been a mess, and they’d had last night off, so they were well-rested, had a massive chip on their shoulders, and were ready to come in and redeem themselves.
We could win, but they sure weren’t going to make it easy.
And apparently we weren’t going to make it easy on ourselves, either—five minutes into the first period, we were on the penalty kill. Cams was in the box for tripping, and Vasily and I fidgeted on the bench while we watched the special teams set up in our defensive zone.
“Not good,” he muttered.
“No, but our PK is good,” I said even as I restlessly bounced my knee. “Calgary’s power play isn’t that great.”
Vasily made an unhappy noise but didn’t gainsay me.
The ref dropped the puck, and Nix won the faceoff. He immediately whipped around and sent it flying down the ice, clearing it out of our zone. Brody shot after it along with one of Calgary’s skaters. Those of us on the bench shouted encouragement; I didn’t know if he intended to make an attempt at a shorthanded goal or just waste the power play’s time, but either way—good on him.
Brody managed to maintain possession and keep it away from the opposing players. Nix entered the zone too, and they passed it a couple of times. No scoring chances, but they wasted a solid thirty seconds of Calgary’s power play.
One of their forwards did finally manage to snipe it away, and Nix and Brody sprinted for the bench for a line change.
“Nice job,” I said to Nix as he dropped onto the bench.
He nodded sharply, focused on the action as he took a swig from his water bottle.
With under a minute to go on the man advantage, Calgary finally set up, and they managed two shots on goal. Then one of our guys cleared the puck, and the penalty kill did another line change, this time swapping out all four players.
One of Calgary’s forwards had the puck and bullied his way into our zone, not even slowed down by the two penalty killers who tried to get in his way.
I held my breath because I knew what was coming. Nix managed to get in there and very nearly knock the skater off the puck, but it wasn’t enough. One lightning-fast backhand later, Calgary scored with four seconds remaining on their power play.
The crowd cheered, as did the home bench. The visitors’ bench was completely silent.
Brown came out of the box and skated back to the bench, looking sheepish as if he’d just cost us the game.
“Keep your chin up,” Vasily told him. “Still plenty of hockey left to play.”
Brown shot him a surprised look, as if he hadn’t expected the encouragement, least of all from our temporary star player.
“He’s right,” Coach said. “We’re only down one, boys. Get to it!”
I wasn’t at all surprised he sent out my line and the top D pair for the next shift. All five of us were well-rested from the two-minute penalty, so we were ready to even up the score.
At first, it wasn’t looking good. Calgary got us into our own end and kept us there.
But then I got the puck away from a forward at the same time I dodged a check from another, and I shouted, “Chevy!”
Vasily was locked on me, and he was ready when my puck landed square on his tape. Ready, and completely unguarded. He tore out of the defensive zone.
A second later, a Calgary defenseman was speeding toward him, and I winced in anticipation of the open-ice check he was about to deliver. Though Vasily wasn’t small, the defenseman was bigger; no amount of skill could change physics.
And then…
The defenseman was toppling to the ice while Vasily continued his charge toward the goal.
