Chapter twelve
Delayed Penalty - A penalty is signaled, but play continues temporarily.
Theron
The game started exactly the way I’d expected—physical, aggressive, with Chicago throwing hits that were technically legal but designed to hurt.
Their coach had clearly given them the okay to push the boundaries, and the refs were calling it tight on both sides, which meant the game kept stopping for penalties that disrupted any momentum we tried to build.
Dante was up in the press box along with two rookies I wasn’t playing.
I’d have been happier if he was at home, but that would have felt too much like punishment, and I knew we had to talk. I just had no idea what to say.
Then Ethan Collins made a mistake.
Collins was one of our rookies—twenty years old, called up from the AHL when we’d had injury problems in January, no experience with playoff intensity. He was skilled, fast, had good instincts when he wasn’t overthinking. But he was young, and young players made mistakes when veterans baited them.
Which was exactly what happened.
I watched it develop from the bench. One of Chicago’s veterans—Himmel, a thirty-five-year-old who’d spent his entire career learning how to get under people’s skin—had been chirping at Collins all game.
Nothing the refs could hear, just the constant stream of commentary that playoff hockey allowed.
Collins had been handling it well enough, ignoring it, focusing on his game.
Then Himmel said something that made Collins’s shoulders tense. I saw it happen, saw the exact moment the kid lost his composure. Himmel went into the corner for a puck battle, and Collins followed him in with his stick up.
The high stick caught Himmel across the face—not hard enough to draw blood, but high enough and visible enough that every ref in the building saw it. The whistles blew immediately.
“Fuck,” I said, because I knew what was coming.
Four minutes. They gave Collins four minutes for a high stick that had been manufactured by a veteran who knew exactly how to make a rookie look undisciplined.
Collins skated to the box with his head down, and I made a note to talk to him after the game about veteran tricks and keeping your composure.
But that conversation would have to wait, because right now, we had four minutes to kill against a team that had brought up enforcers specifically to take advantage of situations like this.
I watched Chicago’s bench. Saw their coach lean forward, saw him gesture to someone in the back. And then Markov and Jensen hopped the boards.
My stomach dropped.
“Max,” I called, but he was already heading over the boards for his shift, because that was what captains did—they played the hard minutes, took the tough assignments, led by example even when it cost them.
I should have stopped him. Should have called a timeout, adjusted the lines, kept him on the bench until the penalty expired.
But I didn’t, because pulling your captain off the ice during a crucial penalty kill sent a message to the team that you didn’t trust him, and I couldn’t afford that message with up to another three games left to play.
So I watched Max take the face-off in our defensive zone. Watched him win it clean, get the puck to Ash along the boards. Watched Ash start to carry it up ice, looking for a clearance.
And then I watched Markov cross-check Max from behind, driving him face-first into the boards with enough force that I heard the impact from the bench.
Max went down hard. Didn’t get up immediately, which was wrong because Max always got up immediately.
Ash dropped his gloves and went after Markov, which earned him a penalty and took us down to three skaters.
The refs were blowing whistles. The crowd was screaming.
And Max was still on the ice, cradling his right wrist against his chest.
Cinder ran on, his medical bag already in hand. Max’s face was white and his wrist was already swelling.
Max extended his arm with visible reluctance.
Even from where I was standing, I could see the angle was wrong.
Maybe broken—but dragons healed too fast for breaks to show up—badly sprained at minimum, possibly fractured in ways that would heal in hours rather than weeks but would still sideline him for the rest of this game.
I saw Cinder gesture and watched as they both came off the ice. It wasn’t a request.
I itched to go help but I wasn’t allowed without permission and a helmet so I stood and watched.
The crowd gave Max a standing ovation as we made our way to the tunnel, which Max acknowledged with a brief nod even though I could see the pain radiating through him with every step.
The refs were sorting out the penalties. The math worked out to four-on-four for two minutes, then we’d go back to the penalty kill for the remaining two minutes of Collins’s high stick.
Four-on-four should have been manageable. We had skilled players who could move the puck, create space, kill time until we got back to full strength. But Chicago had Markov and Jensen on the ice, and they were playing like men who’d been given the green light to do whatever it took.
The puck dropped. Cole won it, chipped it to Keegan along the boards. Keegan started to carry it up ice, looking for a clearance.
Jensen came in with an elbow that the refs somehow didn’t see. Keegan went down. The puck came loose. One of Chicago’s defensemen picked it up, fed it back to the point, and their power play quarterback one-timed it past Levin before anyone could get into the shooting lane.
The goal horn sounded. Chicago’s bench erupted. And we were tied 2-2 with two minutes still to kill on Collins’s penalty and our captain in medical with a wrist that was swelling like a balloon.
Dragon healing was remarkable, but it wasn’t instantaneous. A broken wrist would take at least two days to heal completely, maybe three if the break was bad. We could hide the injury. Cinder would cover for him, but Max would miss the rest of this game and probably game four.
I watched the rest of the penalty kill. We survived it—barely. Levin made three saves that were incredible, Cole blocked a shot with his ribs that made me wince in sympathy, and somehow, we made it to the buzzer still tied 2-2.
But the damage was done. Chicago had proven they could hurt us, would hurt us, and the refs either couldn’t or wouldn’t stop it. And we had one more period to survive before we could get out of this building and regroup.
I made my way back to the dressing room as the teams changed for the third period. The energy had shifted—our guys were angry now, which could be useful or catastrophic depending on whether they channeled it into smart hockey or retaliation that would put us further down.
“Listen up,” I called, and eighteen faces turned toward me.
“I know you’re pissed. I’m pissed too. But we do not” —I made sure to make eye contact with each of them— “we do not give them what they want. They want us taking stupid penalties, getting thrown out of the game, losing our composure. We don’t give them that.
We play smart, we play our game, and we find a way to win this. Understood?”
“Understood, Coach,” came the chorus of replies.
I looked at Cole, at Keegan, at Ash who’d just gotten thrown out for defending his captain. At all of them, really, these players I’d spent months trying to mold into something cohesive, something that could win when it mattered.
“Dante, Morven, and Elijah are watching from upstairs,” I said, which was true and also calculated. “Let’s show them what this team looks like when we have each other’s backs.”
I saw something shift in their expressions—a collective hardening of resolve that told me they’d heard what I was really saying. This wasn’t just about winning a playoff game. This was about proving we were the kind of team that didn’t break when someone tried to break us.
The third period started, and I sent out my best defensive lineup. We were going to protect this tie, take it to overtime if we had to, find a way to steal a win and cut Chicago’s series lead.
But I knew, watching Jensen and Markov hop the boards again, that it was going to cost us something before the night was over.
I just hoped it wasn’t more than we could afford to pay.
It happened eight minutes into the third period.
Julian Marchand went into the corner battling for a loose puck with one of Chicago’s defensemen—a clean play, the kind of board battle that happened fifty times a game.
But Jensen was right there, coming in from the side with his stick up, and what should have been incidental contact turned into something else entirely when Jensen’s elbow caught Julian in the side of the head.
Julian went down like someone had cut his strings.
The whistle blew immediately, but it was already too late. Cole was over the boards before I could stop him, Morovoz right behind him. Keegan came in from the point. Even Levin was halfway out of his crease, and I’d never seen that goalie close to abandoning his net in a tied game.
Jensen dropped his gloves, which was stupid because Cole didn’t need the invitation.
They went at it in the corner while the refs tried to separate everyone else.
I watched Cole land three solid punches before the linesmen finally pulled them apart, and the savage satisfaction on his face told me everything I needed to know about how much he’d been holding back all game.
The refs sorted through the chaos. Four minutes for fighting to both Cole and Jensen.
Game misconduct for Jensen because of the initial hit.
Two minutes to Keegan for roughing. Two minutes to Chicago’s defenseman for the same thing.
When the math worked out, we were back to even strength with Julian being helped off the ice by Cinder and our backup medical staff.
I met them at the tunnel entrance. Julian was conscious, which was good, but his eyes weren’t tracking properly, and he was leaning heavily on Cinder’s shoulder.
“Concussion?” I asked quietly.
“Definitely,” Cinder confirmed. “He’s done for the week. Probably longer, depending on how bad it is.” Marchand was human.
That made two players down. Max with his broken wrist, Julian with a concussion. We were running out of bodies, and Chicago knew it.
I turned back to the bench and made the call I’d been dreading. “Yukin, you’re up. Take Marchand’s spot on the third line.”
Yukin was nineteen, called up from the AHL two weeks ago, had played exactly six NHL games before tonight. His eyes went wide, but he nodded and hopped the boards when his line was called.
The kid did fine—didn’t make any catastrophic mistakes, didn’t try to do too much, just played his position and moved the puck when it came to him. But fine wasn’t going to win us this game. We needed exceptional, and exceptional was in the dressing room with a broken wrist and a concussion.
Chicago sensed blood in the water. They pressed harder, threw more hits, tried to goad us into more penalties that would give them the power play they needed. I rotated lines faster than I normally would, keeping fresh legs on the ice, trying to match their physicality without losing our structure.
Twelve minutes left. Ten. Eight.
Then Cole did something brilliant.
He picked up the puck in our defensive zone, chipped it past Chicago’s forecheck, and took off.
He was fast—faster than he had any right to be at this point in the game after fighting and getting hit for sixty minutes.
Phoenix was screaming something from the tunnel that I couldn’t hear but Cole apparently could, because he shifted his angle slightly as he crossed the blue line.
The defenseman committed to the body check. Cole pulled the puck back at the last second, let the hit glance off his shoulder, and suddenly he had nothing but ice between him and Chicago’s goalie.
I held my breath. The building held its breath. Eighteen thousand people in Dragons jerseys surged to their feet, screaming.
Cole went backhand, top shelf, far side. The goalie had no chance.
The red light came on. The goal horn sounded. And Cole turned toward our bench with his arms up, his face split in a grin that I could see from fifty feet away.
We were up 3-2 with six minutes left.
Chicago pulled their goalie with three minutes remaining, which gave them an extra attacker but also meant any mistake would result in an empty-net goal.
Chicago threw everything at us. Shots from the point, deflections, scrambles in front of Levin that had me gripping the bench hard enough to leave marks. The clock ticked down with agonizing slowness. Two minutes. Ninety seconds. One minute.
Chicago pulled their goalie again after an icing, desperate for the equalizer. Forty-five seconds left. Thirty. Twenty.
The puck came to Keegan at center ice. He had an empty net in front of him, but two Chicago players between him and the goal. I watched him make the calculation, saw him decide it wasn’t worth the risk, and fed it to Ash streaking down the wing instead.
Ash didn’t hesitate. He fired it from the red line, and I watched that puck sail through the air in what felt like slow motion, tracking true despite the distance, despite the pressure, despite everything.
It went in.
4-2 Dragons.
The final fifteen seconds were just formality. Chicago didn’t even bother pulling their goalie again. The horn sounded. The game was over.
We’d won.
I stood there for a moment, letting it sink in. We’d won despite the targeting, despite losing Max and Julian, despite everything Chicago had thrown at us. My team had held together when it mattered most.
So why didn’t it feel like a win? I kept myself from looking at the press box with difficulty.