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IN OUR LASTgame against the Coyotes, their goaltender had shut us out. At home, no less, which only made the loss sting worse than if we’d been on the road. We were already at the end of January, and not once all season had we lost two games in a row. In today’s NHL, that didn’t happen. But now, it was looking like we were about to drop two in a row for the first time all season long.
Needless to say, that thought didn’t sit well with anyone on the bench. We’d come so close to capturing the biggest prize in the sport, the Stanley Cup, at the end of last season, but we’d fallen just short. And why was that? Because, once we’d gotten to the Finals, we’d lost twice in a row. And then it had happened again. And then our season had been over. Done. Kaput.
All season long, Bergy and the rest of the coaching staff had been drilling into us the importance of not letting any sort of a losing streak take hold like that. Not during the season. Definitely not once we got to the playoffs, but we had to treat the whole season like it was the playoffs. That was how it worked when you were in the thick of things in the Western Conference. There was no room for complacency. Only for excellence, for pushing yourself to the very brink of your limits and then finding some way to push further, harder, faster, stronger.
It didn’t help that our defense was currently being held together with duct tape and silly putty. In a normal season, I was a third-pairing defenseman at best. We were all playing over our heads right now due to injuries to our top guys.
Andrew Jensen was out indefinitely with a concussion.
Keith Burns had been playing through a hairline fracture in his foot, but once Cole Paxton had returned from his emergency appendectomy, Burnzie had blocked another shot with the exact same spot on his foot. Now he was out for at least the next six weeks, possibly longer. We might be lucky to have him back in time for the playoffs.
Dominic “Bear” Medved, who had been my partner before all these injuries, had been dealing with groin issues all season that kept pulling him out of the lineup.
That was why Jim Sutter had brought in Hammer a few weeks ago. Better to have a guy with some experience than to call up some kid from the AHL who wasn’t ready for the kind of pressure we were under. So now, we had a makeshift defensive corps.
Cody “Harry” Williams was up on the top pairing with Colesy. They’d both at least been in the league for quite a while, but neither was truly a number one guy. Or at least they hadn’t been before. Harry had been surprising everyone with how well he was adapting to his new role, though.
I was with Hammer in the middle, definitely a step above where either of us had spent much time before in our careers.
Bear—as long as he was healthy—was with Ilya Demidov. Demi usually floated in and out of the lineup, filling holes when needed; now he was an every night player.
When Bear had to sit out for a game or two because of his groin, Jim was forced to call up someone from our AHL affiliate, the Seattle Storm. Several of those kids had potential, but none of them were ready for the NHL. If they were, they’d already be playing up with us.
So far, as a ragtag group, we were holding our own. But if one more of us went down with an injury or did something stupid to earn a suspension, we were royally fucked.
All of that was running through my head when, down three goals to one against the Sharks heading into the second intermission, Bear came off the ice limping. Harry and I each draped one of Bear’s arms over our shoulders and practically carried him back to the locker room, where the trainers took over. It didn’t look good as they herded him back into the training room and called for Doc to join them. The way he was wincing and grimacing with everything they did—not a chance in hell he was coming back on the ice tonight. That meant we were down to five D for the rest of the game.
After a few minutes, Bergy and Adam “Handy” Hancock, the assistant coach who handled the defense, came out of the trainers’ room and made their way over to the corner of the locker room where the five of us were huddled together.
“Doc says it doesn’t look good for him to come back tonight,” Bergy said unnecessarily. “We’re going to stick with the current pairs. Demi will rotate in to spell the rest of you sometimes. I think we’ll go to a four-forward, one-D set for power plays to give you guys a breather where we can, plus it’ll give us a bit more firepower to score a couple of goals.”
That meant for the rest of the game, Hammer and I would be out on the ice essentially every other shift, unless somehow the refs decided to give us a hell of a lot more power plays in this game. Not likely. They’d only handed out one between both teams in the first two periods combined.
I reached for a bottle of water behind me in my stall, and I chugged. I knew I’d need it.
“Let’s do this, boys,” Hammer said once the coaches left us. “Just stay calm out there. Do what you know you can do. Keep it simple. Nothing fancy—the Sharks forwards will pounce on a bad pass in a heartbeat, and Nicky’s already got enough rubber coming his way without us fucking him over like that.”
Throughout the room, there were small groups like ours, with someone giving a quiet pep talk like Hammer was giving. It had to do with the way my brother led this team. He wasn’t much of a talker, more of a doer. He led the team by example, doing everything the right way and expecting everyone around him would follow his lead. The other leaders in the room had picked up on Jamie’s style. There wasn’t any need with this team for big speeches or yelling. We got shit done.
Tonight, we weren’t getting shit done, though. Which was why there were currently so many of our leaders around the room, calmly talking to the guys around them—Hammer bringing all the defensemen together, Jamie talking to a few of the high-end forwards, Jonny gathering his line mates in.
Hell, even Brenden “Soupy” Campbell had come down from the press box to sit with a few of the forwards who went out on the penalty kill. Soupy was on the injured reserve again, out for a few weeks with a hip injury, but the guy was as much a part of this team as ever. He might as well be a coach with those guys, the way they listened to him. I figured he held so much sway with them because he’d had to fight tooth and nail for everything he’d earned in this league. He was a warrior, never giving in, even when his body was fighting against him.
Bergy only said a few words before we headed back out for the third—reminding us that we needed to dictate the tone of the game. Play our way. Skate fast. Fight hard. Clean, crisp passes. Keep the pressure on them, and we could come out on top, because we were as good as any team in this league.
It seemed to be working. Shift after shift, our forwards were cycling the puck in the Sharks’ zone, peppering the goalie with shots. The D all focused on keeping an eye on good defensive positioning and not overstaying our shifts. As short as we were on defense, the last thing any of us needed to do was get caught out there too long.
Four minutes in, I deflected Sharks forward Pavelski’s shot away from the net, then corralled and settled the puck. Glanced up ice. Jamie was already streaking through the neutral zone, so I lobbed the puck up and over everyone’s heads to land right at his feet. He stickhandled it, all alone even though the Sharks’ D were racing after him. Two dekes and a backhand shot later, the puck soared over the Sharks’ goalie’s glove hand and in the net.
“Hell of a fucking pass,” Jamie shouted in my ear when I caught up to him, slapping my helmet.
He was the one who’d made the play happen, though. Not me.
It didn’t matter. The only thing that mattered was we were now within a single goal. One good shot was all we’d need, as long as no one did anything stupid. Now to tie it up.
The next several minutes turned into a track meet between the two sides, racing up and down the ice from one end to the other, with countless flurries of activity in front of the goaltenders, but they both kept the scoreboard the same.
I was huffing for air on the bench after one of those crazy shifts when Koz and Ghost broke out with the puck and none of San Jose’s players within range to cut them off—especially when you considered Ghost’s wheels. The guy could fly out there.
