Chapter 23 Pratt
Chapter twenty-three
Pratt
Detroit's arena had sightlines I'd adjusted to three years running. The glass behind the net sat a few inches higher than at home. The boards came back faster off the corners, not dramatically, not enough to throw anyone, just enough to register as a variable on first contact.
I made the necessary adjustments.
I ran my pre-game routine in the visitors' locker room the way I ran it everywhere. I dressed left to right in the same order. The posts had the same dimensions as at home, and the crease geometry was the same. None of it changed based on zip code.
Early in the first, a winger barreled down the left side, with his head down, telegraphing the shot before his stick moved. The puck came in at mid-height, blocker side. It deflected off the leather and died in the corner.
Holt was there before the rebound finished moving, angling the forward away from any follow-up attempt. He moved the puck up the wall.
I reset.
Cross won a defensive zone draw cleanly on the left side, and the puck moved out of our end without any of us having to scramble. It was the kind of sequence that didn't make highlight reels but kept our team in the game.
We scored in the second period. Kieran put one through traffic from the right circle. It wasn't a hard shot that would make highlight reels. It was textbook timing executed at top speed. Cross added another off a draw win and a wrist shot from the high slot.
Their push came in the third. The Wings were running out of time, and they knew it. They loaded up the front and started dumping pucks deep, trying to generate chaos in front of me.
I tracked, set, and let them come. Two shots that might have been trouble were taken away by Rook appearing from somewhere behind the play.
Final horn. We won the game 2-0.
In the tunnel, I checked my phone before my sweat had dried. Nashville won too.
I looked at the number, put the phone away, and walked into the locker room. The math didn't change, and there was no movement in the standings. We had one must-win game remaining.
On the way home, the plane was at cruising altitude before Varga finished his recap to anyone who would listen. I had my headphones on.
Varga fell asleep somewhere over southern Michigan with his mouth open and his phone balanced on his chest. Holt took photos.
Rook had the window seat and was looking at the clouds outside. Cross had reclined exactly two inches and stopped there.
I watched the altitude display climb to thirty-one thousand and level off. Then I closed my eyes.
The flight ran two hours and change. I tracked the descent by pressure and didn't need the display to tell me when we were close.
Chicago came up through the cloud layer the way it always did, the grid arriving all at once and then sorting itself into neighborhoods if you knew what you were looking at.
I was looking forward to being home.
I could have said after any road trip for the past six seasons. What was different was that home included a someone now.
When I arrived at my condo, I drank sixteen ounces of water at the counter. Sully's side of the wall was quiet. He was working late at Carver's.
I lay on my back in my dark bedroom and ran the crease geometry the way I always did before sleep on the night before a home game. I was checking that the house was in order.
We had one game left. My preparation was complete. The rest would resolve on the ice.
I closed my eyes.
***
I returned home from morning skate at eleven am. My key was in the lock when I heard a sound from inside. It wasn't music. It was a documentary voice, even and unhurried.
I opened the door.
Sully was on my couch with his feet up on the coffee table and a book open across his knees. He'd pushed his hair back off his forehead. He wore a flannel shirt from my closet and a pair of socks that didn't match.
He didn't look up immediately.
I set my bag on its hook and hung my coat in the closet.
"How was the ice?" he asked, without looking away from the screen.
"Clean."
"That's a good answer."
"Yes."
I moved to the kitchen. I'd eaten my game-day meal for breakfast, and I found frozen Chinese dumplings to heat in the air fryer. Sully had a coffee mug, the largest one I owned, on the end table beside him.
"There's coffee," he called. "Made it about twenty minutes ago. Should still be decent."
"Thank you."
The condo ran quietly around us, with the air fryer cycling and the refrigerator humming. I entered the living room. Sully moved his feet without being asked, pulling them off the table and tucking one leg under him. I sat beside him.
The TV was running a Premier League match.
"What is this?"
"I found your streaming list. It recommended this as what to watch next. I've been watching it for about forty minutes. I don't entirely understand the rules, but it looks a little like hockey on grass."
"What do you like about it?" I asked.
"The pace. It just keeps going and doesn't stop." He paused. "Also, most of them are hot to look at. You know, athletes."
I looked at him.
"I do know," I said.
While sharing my dumplings with Sully, we watched the next match. The leisure time swallowed up most of my afternoon.
I changed into my arena suit. When I returned to the living room, Sully looked up at me.
"What?" I asked.
"Nothing." He turned his attention back to the TV. "You look good, that's all, but I guess you always look that way."
I picked up my keys and checked my pockets. I had my phone, wallet, and keys, the necessities.
"Are you watching the game on TV? I could swing a last-minute ticket if you're interested."
"Inertia's a beast," he said. "Let's say, next season I plan ahead and bring Nora so she can chat me up when things get slow."
I crossed to the couch and stopped beside Sully. He tilted his head up. I put my hand along his jaw and kissed him. He kissed back, momentarily looking away from the TV.
When I pulled back, he was smiling.
"Go," he said.
I pulled out my phone and opened Spotify. Ten seconds of the chorus, perfectly timed, and cut before the second line.
The lift was immediate. It always was.
I picked up my bag and walked out.
***
The anthem pulled me in on the second verse the way it always did.
I held my breath through the last eight bars, let it out at the cymbal crash, and dropped into my stance. Our home crowd was loud. The nineteen thousand-plus sold-out crowd knew what the game meant.
The puck dropped.
Nashville came out structured and focused, which meant they were immediately dangerous. A team that panicked was readable. A team that arrived with a plan and the composure to execute it required more of me from the opening face off.
Their first line cycled deep in our zone for ninety seconds before Rook stepped up and took the puck off their winger's stick at the half wall. He moved it to Cross without looking.
Their first shot came at four minutes. It was from the right circle, low and aimed at the post. The puck hit my pad and went directly to Holt in the corner.
Their second line was faster than their first and less patient.
They wanted to generate chaos in transition and feed off whatever came loose in front of me.
I tracked through two screens in the neutral zone and had the shot read before they crossed our blue line.
It came in hard, and I caught it clean at chest height.
The first period ended scoreless.
Kieran scored eleven minutes into the second.
It wasn't a spectacular goal. It was a correct one. Cross won a draw at the left circle, moved the puck back to the point, and Kieran came off the weak side on a route he'd been running since October. The defenseman was a half-step late.
Our bench rattled sticks against the boards as the crowd roared. I tapped my left pad once with the blocker and moved back to the top of the paint.
Their response came in the last minutes of the second; three quick shots, all managed. The third was the closest, a deflection that changed direction off a shin pad and came at me low and late.
They finally scored a goal at nine minutes into the third.
The shot came through two bodies stacked in front of me. I tracked it into the traffic and then lost it for three frames. Three frames were enough.
I retrieved the puck from the back of the net and handed it to the linesman without looking at the scoreboard. I knew the score. Two-one. I knew the time. I knew what we had to do.
I set my edges and waited for the face off. They pulled their goalie with two minutes left.
It was six skaters against our five. Their first shot with the extra attacker came from the point, hard, through a screen Cross hadn't fully cleared. I picked it up late off the shooter's blade and adjusted half a step right. It hit the inside of my pad and deflected wide.
Rook covered the corner before anyone else reached it.
Their second chance came off a turnover at our blue line. Two forwards got behind our defense for a half-second before Holt closed the gap. The pass came cross-ice, and the shot followed immediately.
I was already in motion.
The puck caught the heel of my glove, and I closed on it before it could drop. The whistle sounded. I held it against my chest and felt my own heartbeat through the leather.
Thirty seconds.
Cross won the face off. The puck went deep. Nashville burned their timeout.
Twenty-two seconds.
The final face off went to their center. It bounced loose. Three players converged along the near wall. It came out to their point man, who wound up hard from the top of the zone.
I tracked it through everything: the screen, traffic, and the noise from the crowd and bench. I set my angle and let it come to me.
It hit my chest pad and dropped straight down. I covered it with my blocker before it touched the paint.
The horn sounded. 2-1. We were in the playoffs.
The locker room erupted in noise and champagne.
Varga's voice arrived before most of the players did, already mid-narrative about the final two minutes in a tone that suggested he was broadcasting it for posterity. Heath was still in his gear, laughing at something Kieran had said in the tunnel.
I hung my helmet on its hook, visor facing out.
Varga appeared at my shoulder.
"Twenty-four saves." He slapped me on the shoulder. "Twenty-four saves and one goal on a shot through a screen that I could not have stopped, and I want that on the record."
"It won't be on the record."
"It's in my heart." He thumped his chest. "We're in, Pratt."
"Yes."
"That's all you've got?"
"Yes."
***
Martin was at the desk when I came through the lobby.
He looked up. "Hell of a last two minutes," he said.
"It worked out."
"More than that." He leaned forward slightly. "That last save on the point shot. It was a work of art."
"I got lucky with the angle."
He shook his head. "Still."
I crossed to the elevator.
The fourth-floor hallway was quiet. There was light under Sully's door. I knocked, three evenly spaced raps.
He opened the door, wearing an Ironhawks t-shirt and dark jeans, barefoot. He reached out for a hug.
"Playoffs," I said.
He'd already opened wine.
It was on the counter with two glasses, already poured. I picked up the nearest glass and swallowed a mouthful.
Sully was already heading for the couch. I joined him.
"I watched the last two minutes standing up," he said. "I didn't realize I'd been standing until it was over."
"What were you doing before that?"
"Sitting on the floor." He drank. "I don't know when that happened either."
"The point shot," he said. "At the end. The one you—" He made a motion with his free hand. "How did you see it?"
"I tracked it late."
"But you got it."
"This time."
"Nora called me twenty minutes after," he said. "She said she told the last four people at the rail that they were welcome to come back tomorrow, but she needed the room." He smiled. "They all stayed for ten more minutes anyway."
"Did she charge them?"
"Double. Said it was a celebration tax."
I reached out and set my wineglass on the coffee table. It was reachable, while far enough from the edge to be stable.
Sully reached over and moved it a quarter inch to line it up with both sides of the table.
The impulse to correct again arrived and passed through me.
I left it where he'd put it.
He settled back into the couch, shoulder coming to rest against mine, and I stayed. The ease of it didn’t surprise me anymore.