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And he was exactly where he wanted to be. The Trailblazers were the team to be on. Last season, they’d won a historic third Stanley Cup in a row, fifth since the team’s first season. They hardly ever traded their players, instead fostering a culture of family and communication. They were the dream team.

But if Eli didn’t step it up, Coach Madolora would get fed up with him and send him packing, team culture be damned.

Didn’t help that, ahead of tonight’s game, one reporter had asked him about his strategy for getting out of his sophomore slump and sustaining high-intensity play throughout the rest of the season.

Eli had pasted on a smile—because bursting into tears would’ve been mortifying—and said, “I’ve been training hard and I’ve got a great group of guys behind me. We support each other, we lean on each other. They make me want to be better, so I’m confident I’ll be able to turn things around.”

As answers went, it was a hell of a non-answer. At the time, though, he had been feeling confident. Practice had gone great this morning, yet the longer the game went on, the lower his confidence sank.

He lost the puck to a Dallas player for what felt like the billionty-seventieth time tonight, and tears of frustration pricked the backs of his eyes. “Shake it off,” he heard Assistant Coach Friedle say in his head. All well and good for him to say from the sidelines—he wasn’t here on the ice with Dallas’s enormous players.

“Shake it off, Eli,” D-man Michael Hughes called as he skated past him.

Easy for him to say. He was a vet. Why was it so easy for veteran players to shake things off?

Probably because they were veteran players and they had nothing to prove. They were vets for a reason. In NHL years, Eli was just a baby.

His shift ended, and he plopped onto the home team bench with a grunt. He tugged his gloves off and tried to secure the corner of the bandage that had come loose, but it was no use. There was no adhesive left.

“What happened there?” DeShawn James asked, nodding at Eli’s hand.

“Tripped over my own feet,” Eli fibbed, because it was the same lie he’d told Dabbs when he’d dropped Castle and Cosmo off at his house. What, he was supposed to tell him that he’d tripped over the dogs? That was just mean-spirited.

Dabbs had nodded like this wasn’t a surprise, so at least it was a believable lie.

DeShawn nodded too. “Painful?”

“Mostly just annoying.” Eli picked at the bandage. He wanted to remove it, but Nolan’s comment about bacteria had him picturing tiny colonies of microbes making homes inside his gloves. They’d been newly cleaned when he’d put them on, but that had been almost two hours ago.

“Eli.”

He turned and blinked up at Friedle.

“Give me your hand.”

Eli figured he wanted the injured one, but he held them both up just in case. Friedle added a piece of bandaid tape to his bandage, securing the loose corner.

“Nice. Thanks, Coach.”

“Welcome,” Friedle said, shoving the roll of tape into an already bulging pant pocket.

“Got candy in there?” Eli asked.

Friedle cocked his head like he was thinking about it, plunged his hand into his pocket, and came out with a Werther’s Original, the soft caramel kind. “That’s all I’ve got. Sorry, I don’t have another one for you, James.”

DeShawn shrugged.

Eli plucked it from Friedle’s fingers. “I’m your favorite, aren’t I?”

Friedle snorted, which Eli interpreted as Yes, obviously.

The crowd let out a collective groan, and Eli turned back to the game. Either Dallas had just scored or Vermont had failed to. The latter, it seemed.

There was another line change as Bellamy Jordan chased the puck into the offensive zone. He increased his speed, crossing wide and veering around Dallas’s defensemen. He came down the wing fast, and if Eli had blinked, he would’ve missed the puck sailing into the net on the goalie’s short side, putting the Trailblazers ahead by two.

The goal horn echoed around the arena along with the cheers of the fans. Eli celebrated with his teammates and offered Bellamy a fist bump when Bellamy hopped over the boards during the stop in play. Sean Gaffney took his place on the ice.

“That was wicked,” Eli announced.