I looked at Coach.
Coach looked back with the expression of a man delivering a message and not its meaning.
"Ten minutes," he said again, and left.
I finished the sequence.
I did not look at Shay.
The GM's office had the quality of all administrative spaces in professional sports , functional, deliberately neutral, the décor of a place that made decisions that affected people's lives and had decided not to acknowledge this with its furniture. Rick Callahan had been the GM for six years. He was not a bad man. He was a man whose job required a specific and practiced separation between the human content of his decisions and the institutional necessity of making them, and he had become good at this the way people became good at necessary things.
He was at his desk when I came in. He had a folder. He gestured to the chair across from him, which I took, and he opened the folder and he did not make me wait.
"We're going to talk about some roster considerations," he said. "Specifically about the center position and some conversations I've had with league contacts this week."
I looked at the folder.
"There's been interest," he said. "External. Several teams, actually, which , I want to be clear , reflects well on our organization and specifically on the player's development here." A pause. The particular pause of a man arranging what he's about to say. "There are also some internal factors the ownership group has been discussing. About roster optics. The team's public image going into the playoff push. Management wants to present a , stable, focused image. No distractions."
I was very still.
I had a quality, when something significant was arriving, of going completely still , not frozen, not tense, just the particular cessation of unnecessary motion that happened when my brain required all available resources. I had been this still in film rooms, in penalty kill situations, in the GM's office two seasons ago when they'd discussed my contract. I knew what it felt like.
This felt different.
"Who," I said.
Callahan looked at me. He knew I already knew. He was a man who respected directness. "O'Brien," he said.
The office was very quiet.
"His numbers are first line," I said.
"They are."
"He's our first line center. He's been our first line center for three seasons. His zone entries alone,"
"Felix." Callahan's voice was even. Not unkind. "I know his numbers."
"You'd be trading a first,line center." The words came out with the precise, controlled force of a man who was keepingsomething very large very still. "A first,line center in his prime. For optics."
Callahan looked at his folder. Then at me. "The interest from other teams is significant. Some of it is quite favorable , picks, a young defenseman we've had our eye on. This isn't a punitive move. It's a,"
"What's the distraction."
A pause.
"Perception," Callahan said, carefully, "of a close personal dynamic between two players on the same line. The ownership group feels it's,"
"A close personal dynamic," I said.
"Felix,"
"We've been linemates for three seasons and our numbers together are the best I've produced in my career and the best he's produced in his." My voice was even. I was very proud of how even it was. "That is the dynamic. What ownership is perceiving is the dynamic producing those numbers, and they want to trade it for picks and a defenseman."
Callahan was quiet.
"Nothing is confirmed," he said. "The word I want to use islikely, if the external interest holds. We have time. But I wanted you to be,"
