The puck stays on his stick.
Huh.
He taps the puck back toward Russo and the play continues like nothing happened.
Okay.
That’s new.
The shift ends a minute later and we glide back to the bench.
I catch Shaw’s eye briefly.
“Nice recovery,” I say.
He shrugs inside the helmet.
“Lucky bounce.”
The game picks up speed after that.
Both teams skate hard, but tonight we’re keeping up. Russo controls the pace through the neutral zone, Chen locks the net down behind us, and for once the whole team seems to be moving in the same direction.
Midway through the second period the puck swings into the corner again.
Shaw gets there first.
This time one of their forwards barrels in after him, clearly planning to crush him into the boards.
But Shaw doesn’t wait.
Just before the guy reaches him, Shaw steps into the hit instead of away from it.
He angles his shoulder and the other player stumbles. Not dramatically, but just enough that his balance shifts the wrong way. Suddenly the bigger guy is the one sliding awkwardly into the boards while Shaw skates away with the puck.
Did he just-
Russo laughs out loud beside me.
“That was clever.”
I can’t help it. A grin creeps across my face as I chase the play down the ice.
By the third period the entire game feels different.
We’re still getting hit. Still fighting for every inch.
But now Shaw is fighting back.
Not with brute force - he’d lose that battle every time - but with timing. Little shifts of weight and clever angles that keep defenders off balance.
Twice he slips free along the boards when someone tries to pin him.
And then there’s the moment that makes the whole bench erupt.
Late in the third, one of their defencemen tries to step into Russo at the blue line.
Shaw cuts across the lane first. He closes the gap in two quick strides. At the last second he drops his hips and drives his shoulder into the defender’s chest, his stick sweeping low to clip the outside of the man’s skate.
