Third period. Tie game.
The crowd had stopped cheering individual plays. They were stomping again, the entire lower bowl keeping time like a second heartbeat.
Kieran cleared space in front of the net. Cross drove the lane wide, pulling the weak-side defenseman with him.
I took net-front.
The defenseman leaned into my back early. Stick blade pressed under my ribs like a shelf bracket. Cross-check that wouldn't draw a whistle because it never did, not in April in a one-goal series.
Good.
I wanted him close. I wanted his weight committed. The thing about leaning into someone at net-front is that when the puck comes, you can't adjust. You've already chosen your position. You're anchored to the man you're trying to move.
I wasn't going anywhere.
Kieran delayed high in the zone. Held. Waited.
He didn't rush under pressure. That was his gift. On the ice, his patience was beautiful.
He threaded the puck through two sticks and a shin pad with the precision that made scouts write words likeelite vision.
It hit my blade while I was absorbing a sideways shove.
Redirect.
Not pretty. My goals never were. They came off skates and shins and the wrong side of the stick blade.
In.
The sound hit my chest before my ears. Nineteen thousand people releasing everything at once, and the glass behind the net shivering with it.
I turned, and Kieran was already there.
Helmet to helmet. He grabbed the back of my neck with his glove. I tugged on his jersey at the shoulder. Our foreheads pressed together half a beat too long for plausible deniability.
His eyes were open. So were mine.
Cross piled in. Rook's arm wrapped around us both. Varga screaming something unintelligible.
We held on.
The series ended twelve minutes later.
After the horn, the handshake line was clean. Their captain gripped my hand. He nodded once. Moved on.
A year ago, I would've scanned the line for hostility. Tried to make myself smaller.
Now it was all only hockey.
In the locker room, champagne sprayed over the stink of playoff gear that had been worn for six games in two weeks. Varga had two bottles going simultaneously. Rook sat in full pads and let it wash over him with the expression of a man who had done this before and planned to do it again.
Pratt sat in his stall longer than anyone.
Mask in his lap. Pads still strapped. Champagne darkening his chest protector. He didn't move to join the chaos. He sat with his legs stretched out, back against the wall, watching the room.
Taking inventory.
Goalies always watched, but Pratt's watching had a different quality lately. Less tactical. More personal. Like he was memorizing something he wasn't sure he'd get to keep.
