We answered with speed next shift. Grayson carried wide and drew two. He dropped it back to me at the line. My shot sailed high, glassing the back wall and coming out hard. Edmonton turned it into a two-on-one the other way. Hunter bailed us out with a glove save that brought the arena back to life.
“That’s it,” Hunter yelled. “Stay in it, guys.”
Edmonton wasn’t about to let that happen. They finished every check. They were pretty talkative too. Their center chirped my ear about last year, about almosts and maybes.
“Get fucked, and play the game,” I spat, skating back to my line.
Midway through the first, I finally got a clean play. Intercepted a pass at our blue, shouldered through a stick, sent it up to Mason. He cut inside and ripped one that caught iron and bounced out. Best look we’d had, but it didn’t count.
The period crawled. The Oilers kept coming. We bent. Hunter held. When the horn finally sounded, 1–0 felt generous.
In the locker room, nobody was in their seats. Tape hissed—self-applied, since our physio had some family emergency that meant she couldn’t make the game. My heart was already in my gut, but sank lower when I watched the guys go through themotions of spritzing each other with cooling spray. Landon tried massaging Mason’s knee.
I swallowed the bile rising in my throat. It was my fault Reese wasn’t here, and again, my fault the team had to pay a price for something they didn’t buy.
Coach drew lines with his finger on the whiteboard and stabbed the middle. “They’re pushing you to make stupid mistakes. Stop giving them gifts.”
I kept my eyes on my gloves. Reese’s seat behind the bench stayed empty in my head. I tried to shove the thought aside, but it slid back. There would be no getting away from it. Not tonight. But I’d played through worse. So there was that.
Second period started worse, despite the pep talk.
They hemmed us in for nearly a minute straight. Puck moved east to west faster than our legs could answer. Shot from the circle. Pad save. Rebound. Stick lift. Another shot that rang off Hunter’s mask. I boxed out their forward and felt his grin against my shoulder.
“Still got it?” he asked.
I shoved him into the crease. The ref glared. No call.
When we finally cleared, I jumped into the rush, trying to will something good. I took a pass in stride, cut toward the middle, and lost it off my heel. Edmonton countered instantly. Tucker bailed me out with a stick-on-puck that saved a tap-in.
“Get your head right,” Tucker snapped as we skated past each other.
I tried. I really did. But every mistake stacked on the last. I fumbled a rim on the next shift. Missed a keep at the line by inches. Each miss tightened something I refused to name.
Late in the second, it burned us.
We were changing when I misread a chip. I stepped up instead of backing off. Their winger slipped it past me and drove wide. I chased, reached, but got nothing. He centered blind. The puck hit skates, pinballed, and landed on their trailing defenseman’s stick. Hunter slid across, but it was too much and the shot went under his arm.
2–0 to Edmonton Oilers.
Coach pointed at me and hooked a finger. Bench.
I slammed down beside him, heart banging, eyes hunting for a familiar ponytail that wasn’t there. Empty space behind the glass. Empty seat.
“You’re forcing it,” Coach said. “You’re not trusting your reads.”
“I’m good,” I huffed through clenched teeth.
“Good doesn’t mean you’re not being reckless out there.”
Grayson skated over, helmet tipped back. “Hey,” he said. “Think of it like the lake. No systems. No noise. Just us guys shooting the shit.”
I swallowed. Nodded. He squeezed my shoulder pad and pushed off.
Mason didn’t come back out. His knee had stiffened and he stayed at the end of the bench, jaw set. Landon hopped over the boards instead, bouncing on his toes like this was the moment he’d been salivating for.
“Let’s go,” he said. “I got it.”
Seconds left. Faceoff outside their zone. Grayson won it clean back to Landon. Instead of dumping, the kid took off. He cut across the blue with speed that turned heads. An Oiler reached and missed. Another closed. Landon slid the puck under a stickand kicked it back to Grayson, who’d followed like he knew it was coming.
