Chapter Eight #2
The building did not groan the way it had after the early goal in his first preseason appearance. The response was quieter, more accepting. One week of solid hockey had already begun changing the atmosphere around him.
The Convoy restored the two-goal lead in the third, and Matvei stopped all nine shots he faced over the final twenty minutes. His best save came with six minutes remaining, when he tracked a pass through the slot and caught the shot cleanly against his chest without leaving a rebound.
The final horn confirmed a 3-1 win.
Matvei finished with twenty-three saves.
Joona and Carver had each scored.
The coaches’ decision had not become any easier.
Tessa remained at her desk while the press box emptied around her. She wrote a quick version of the game story, leading with the two bubble forwards who had made their final arguments on the same night. Matvei’s performance appeared lower in the piece. Solid, controlled and largely uneventful.
The opening-night question could wait until the roster was official.
By the time she reached the locker room, Joona had already drawn a crowd.
Reporters asked whether the goal had been the biggest of his career, whether he believed he had earned a roster spot and how he planned to spend the hours before the decision.
His answers were more polished than they had been earlier in camp, though he still paused occasionally to find the right word.
“I did what I can do,” he said. “Now coaches choose.”
Tessa did not ask him another version of the same question.
She waited until the scrum ended, then asked about the play along the wall that created the goal.
Joona brightened when the conversation returned to hockey, explaining how the coaching staff had encouraged him to keep moving his feet through contact rather than looking for open space too early.
Ben Carver’s stall was less crowded.
He answered the questions patiently, acknowledging that he understood what the game meant and believed he had shown he belonged in the NHL. Tessa asked what he felt he had demonstrated beyond the goal.
“That they know what they’ll get from me,” Carver said. “I can bring energy. I can kill penalties, I can protect a lead and I’m not going to cheat for offense. I’ve spent a long time trying to prove I can help this team.”
There was no obvious resentment in his voice, but Tessa heard the years behind the answer.
Joona was twenty-one and treated as a player arriving ahead of schedule. Carver was twenty-five and had reached the point where patience began to look like stagnation. The same decision would mean opportunity for one and another delay for the other.
Tessa thanked him and moved away before anyone could ask which player she believed the team should keep.
She did not speak with Matvei after the game.
There was no reason to. His performance had been good but not especially revealing, and the starter question belonged after the coaches had finalized the roster. She saw him across the room speaking with Cole, both goaltenders still wearing their base layers while Pat stood between them.
Cole said something that made Matvei smile.
It was not a broad laugh, only a slight movement at the corner of his mouth.
Tessa looked away before Nina’s voice could return.
The final cut was announced at ten-o’clock the following morning.
Tessa was already in the media workroom for practice when the email arrived from the Convoy’s communications staff. She opened the attached roster, scanned the names and found Joona listed among the thirteen forwards.
Ben Carver had been assigned to the minors.
For a moment, the room remained quiet. Then phones began ringing and fingers moved across keyboards as reporters prepared brief updates for their websites and broadcasts.
Tessa called her editor first.
“Joona made it,” she said when the line connected. “Carver’s the last cut.”
“Get something up now. Then give me a fuller roster piece after practice.”
“I’m on it.”
“And the goalies?”
“Both are on the roster.”
“I know that. Who starts?”
“They haven’t announced it.”
“Ask.”
Tessa looked through the windows at the empty ice. “That was the plan.”
She ended the call and opened a new document.
The first update took less than ten minutes.
She wrote that Salonen had earned a place after leading Halifax in preseason scoring and proving he could adapt quickly to the smaller North American ice.
She included Carver’s assignment without framing it as a failure, noting his strong camp and the likelihood that he would be among the first players recalled if injuries created an opening.
Then she waited for practice.
The session was short, more preparation than evaluation now that the decisions had been made. Joona skated on the third line again. Carver was absent, his stall already cleared by the time the media entered the locker room.
The empty space drew Tessa’s attention immediately.
His nameplate remained above the stall, but the equipment beneath it was gone. No skates. No gloves. No stack of team-issued shirts folded on the bench. Only two strips of discarded tape remained on the floor where the equipment staff had not yet reached them.
The NHL roster had been reduced to a list on paper.
The room showed what that meant.
Tessa started with Joona.
The young winger sat beneath his stall wearing a navy team shirt and black athletic shorts, his hair still wet from the shower. A Finnish flag had been taped beneath the nameplate sometime during practice. He had either not noticed it yet or was pretending not to.
Several reporters crowded around him, though the atmosphere was less tense than it had been during his earlier interviews.
“How did you find out?” Linda asked.
“Coach tell me this morning.”
“What did he say?”
“That I stay.”
A few people laughed.
Joona smiled. “He say I earn it. But work start now.”
“Who was the first person you called?”
“My parents.”
“What was their reaction?”
“My mother cry. My father say good, then ask if I play power play.”
The room laughed again, and Joona’s shoulders relaxed.
Tessa waited until the questions turned repetitive before speaking.
“What do you think changed most for you between the first day of camp and now?”
Joona considered the question. “I understand more.”
“The game?”
“Everything. Game, coaches, room. English, little bit.”
“Very little,” Matvei called from two stalls away.
Joona turned toward him. “Better than your Finnish.”
“My Finnish is perfect.”
“You know one bad word.”
“I use it correctly.”
Joona smiled before turning back to the reporters.
Tessa became aware of Matvei without looking directly at him. She could hear the roughness in his voice and picture the expression that accompanied it. Probably the slight lift of one eyebrow he used when saying something deliberately absurd.
She kept her attention on Joona.
“What helped with the adjustment?” she asked.
“Teammates. Everybody help.” Joona glanced toward Matvei. “Some more than they say.”
Tessa wrote the quote down.
When the scrum ended, she crossed toward Viktor’s stall.
The captain had spent most of camp praising Joona’s skill without pretending the transition would be easy.
He spoke about the winger’s willingness to attack the middle of the ice, his improved defensive details and the confidence required to make plays while competing for a job.
“He didn’t spend camp trying not to make a mistake,” Viktor said. “That’s difficult for a young player. He kept showing us what he could do.”
Tessa asked about Carver next.
Viktor’s expression shifted. “That’s the hard part.”
“What did he show during camp?”
“Everything we already knew about him. He’s reliable, he works and he’s ready when we need him. This wasn’t him having a bad camp. It was a numbers decision.”
“Have you talked to him?”
“Yeah. A few of us did before he left.”
Tessa did not ask what had been said. The room was already public enough.
She thanked Viktor and moved toward Cole Bennett.
Cole had become one of the easiest players for her to interview.
He was friendly without sounding rehearsed and seemed genuinely interested in explaining the technical parts of his position.
He also understood why the media kept asking about the starting job, even if the questions had begun testing his patience.
He sat beneath his stall rolling a lacrosse ball beneath the arch of one foot. At six-foot-two, he was large by almost any standard but appeared smaller because his stall was only a few spaces from Matvei’s.
“Got a minute?” Tessa asked.
“Sure.”
She turned on her recorder. “Now that camp is over, how do you evaluate the way you played?”
“I felt good. There are things I want to clean up, but I think I gave myself a chance every time I played.”
“Do you feel like you’ve done enough to start opening night?”
Cole smiled, though the question did not surprise him. “I think I’ve done enough to show I can play. Who gets the opener is up to the coaches.”
“Would it mean more after the opportunity you had last January?”
“Every start means something.” He rolled the ball beneath his foot again. “Obviously I want to play. I don’t think there’s a goalie in the league who doesn’t. But Belly’s been the guy here for a long time, and he had a good camp too. Whatever they decide, we both have to be ready.”
There was no challenge in the answer.
No claim that the job should belong to him because Matvei had lost it before.
Tessa asked what he had learned from playing more frequently the previous season, then thanked him and moved aside as another reporter stepped in.
Only then did she look toward Matvei.