“Petrov’s your teammate, and we win or lose together. If you see gaps in his game, help him improve—that’s what leaders do. But calling him a liability? That’s the kind of attitude that destroys team chemistry and makes us all worse.”
Back at the hotel, I tried to nap but couldn’t settle. Pregame energy mixed with lingering frustration about Turner, about the speech the next day, about the impossible situation with Wesley that seemed to grow more complicated with every interaction.
At five thirty, I headed downstairs for the team dinner, stomach already churning with a mix of game-day nerves and residual airsickness. Hotel staff had sectioned the restaurant off for us, the tables arranged to accommodate the full traveling party.
I was scanning for an open seat when I spotted Wesley near the entrance, talking to someone from our sales department. The guy—Brooks, I thought his name was—stood too close, smiled too widely, his body language unmistakably flirtatious.
Wesley laughed at something Brooks said, that genuine laugh that made his whole face light up. Brooks touched Wesley’s arm, the contact casual but deliberate.
Jealousy hit like a sucker punch, sharp and irrational and completely unjustified. I had no claim on Wesley. No right to care who flirted with him or touched him or made him laugh. We’d agreed on boundaries, on maintaining professional distance, on all the very good reasons nothing could happen between us.
But watching Brooks lean closer, watching Wesley’s comfortable body language, made me want to cross the room and insert myself into their conversation in ways that would be completely inappropriate and absolutely revealing.
I forced myself to look away, to join Laasko and Holloway at the long team table like nothing was wrong. Like I wasn’t burning with jealousy I had no right to feel and couldn’t express to anyone.
“You okay, Cap?” Holloway asked.
“Fine. Just getting in the zone for the game,” I said, my jaw tight.
But the game started badly.
I lost the opening faceoff, a fundamental failure that set the tone for everything that followed. San Jose came out aggressively, clearly motivated by their home crowd and the memory of losing in Portland. Their forecheck was relentless, their defensive structure tight, and every mistake we made got capitalized on immediately.
Midway through the first period, San Jose scored on a power play after Williams took an unnecessary penalty. Then they added another goal before the period ended, exploiting a defensive breakdown that made us look like we’d never played together before.
In the locker room between periods, Coach Roberts was controlled but intense. “We’re better than this. Start talking to each other out there. Trust your systems. Play as a unit, not individuals.”
The second period was slightly better. Laasko scored on a beautiful one-timer I’d set up, showing the chemistry we’d been building. Then Petrov added another midway through the third, briefly making it a tied game.
But San Jose answered with two more goals in the final ten minutes, the last an empty-netter that made the final 4–2 score look worse than the game had felt.
The mood on the bus back to the airport was grim. Players sat in silence or had quiet conversations, the energy completely different from that morning’s departure from Portland.
I stared out the window at San Jose’s passing lights, mentally replaying every mistake, every missed opportunity, every moment where we’d failed to execute. The next day, I was supposed to give a speech about leadership and teamwork to Portland’s business community. That night, we’d looked like a collection of untalented individuals who couldn’t figure out how to play together.
I found my seat on the plane—same one as that morning—and wasn’t surprised when Wesley slid in beside me without asking.
We didn’t have the excuse of speech practice this time. No professional justification for choosing to sit together instead of with our respective groups. But neither of us acknowledged that as Wesley buckled in and I leaned back against the headrest.
“Tough game,” Wesley said quietly.
I dry swallowed my medicine to prepare for takeoff. “We played like shit,” I said low so my teammates wouldn’t hear me.
“You played like a brand-new team still learning each other. Which is what you are.”
“That’s a generous spin,” I said, bitterness in my tone.
“It’s an accurate spin.” Wesley shifted to face me slightly. “Griffin, you can’t expect perfection in preseason. Tonight exposed weaknesses, which means you know what to work on. That’s the point of these games.”
I knew he was right. Knew that preseason was about identifying problems and building chemistry rather than winning at all costs. But the weight of expectations—prove Boucher wrong, establish Portland as legit, show I could still compete at an elite level—made the loss feel like validation of every doubt anyone had ever expressed.
“Tomorrow I’m supposed to talk about building successful teams,” I said. “After tonight, that feels like fraud.”
“Tomorrow you’re going to talk about the process of building teams, not the finished product. About facing adversity and learning from setbacks. Tonight gave you real-world material to reference.” Wesley’s voice carried that characteristic optimism that somehow never felt naïve. “Use it. Be honest about the challenges while projecting confidence in the outcome.”
The way he reframed failure into narrative opportunity, found angles that served our purposes without lying—it was exactly the kind of strategic thinking that made Wesley exceptional at his job.
“How do you do that?” I asked.
