you played!!!!
TWELVE MINUTES
I watched every second
you stopped everything
Me
four shots
Mackie
FOUR PLAYOFF SHOTS
Zach that’s huge
Me
it was garbage time
Mackie
it was YOUR time. Take the win.
I take the win. For once I let myself have it.
Game 4.They play desperate because nobody wants to get swept at home and the crowd is rabid from puck drop. They score twice in the first and once in the second and Luca is fighting it—not in a way anyone in the stands would notice, but I can see the half-second delays because I’ve been watching him for two years and I know what he looks like when he’s thinking instead of reacting. Thinking instead of reacting is the first sign that the workload is catching up.
We lose 4-2. Luca throws his water bottle in the hallway and nobody says anything because that’s the deal with your starting goalie in the playoffs—you give him space, you let him be angry, you trust that the anger resets by next game.
Barrett catches me in the tunnel. “Almardon, stay ready.”
“Yes sir.”
“You played solid in Game 3. I want you to know that didn’t go unnoticed.” He puts his hand on my shoulder and holds it there and the weight of it reminds me of Anderson. “Whatever happens, you’re ready.”
Whatever happens. I walk to the bus turning that over because whatever happens means Luca gets hurt or has a bad night or something goes wrong and suddenly it’s my net and my game and I’ve spent my entire career sitting in that distance between “stay ready” and “you’re starting” and I still don’t know what happens when it closes.
I check my phone on the silent bus ride back to the hotel.
Mackie
it’s okay. One loss doesn’t change anything
you’re coming home 3-1
game 5 is at our place
bring it home
Game 5. Home. A chance to clinch. And underneath all of it, the way it always is, the thought I can’t turn off—every game closer to the end of the season and the conversation that starts with ‘Jack, I need to tell you something.’
24
MACKIE
Oh my god.
