Chapter Ten #2
Tessa stood several rows above the bench, writing notes as McDonough stopped a drill to correct Joona’s position near the left circle.
“You’re drifting too high,” the coach called. “Get downhill before the puck arrives. You wait until you have it, the lane’s gone.”
Joona nodded and returned to the line.
On the next repetition, he attacked the opening earlier and released the shot before the defenseman could close.
The puck hit the crossbar.
Matvei turned toward the sound and looked behind him.
“Still no goal,” he said.
Joona skated past the crease. “Tonight.”
Matvei tapped the winger’s shin pad with his stick.
“We see.”
The confidence in Joona’s answer sounded partly borrowed.
After the skate, the locker room opened for less than fifteen minutes. Tessa spoke with Joona about the power play, then Viktor about the challenges of playing in Toronto. She approached Matvei last.
He was seated in the corner of the visiting room, which made him look even larger than usual. The stalls had been built close together, forcing the players’ equipment into the narrow aisle. Matvei’s knees nearly touched the bag at his feet.
“You fit?” Tessa asked before turning on her recorder.
He looked around the cramped space. “No.”
“That seems inconvenient.”
“They build for small goalies.”
“Cole fits.”
“Cole is small.”
Cole, two stalls away, glanced over. “I’m six-two.”
“Small.”
Tessa smiled.
Matvei noticed.
Something passed through his expression and disappeared before she could identify it.
She turned on the recorder. “Toronto generates a lot of offense from below the goal line. How can you make sure you track those plays?”
The question moved them safely back to hockey. He gave her more than she needed, then stopped abruptly when another reporter approached with a camera.
The distance returned immediately.
Tessa thanked him and moved away.
She had learned not to take the change personally.
Mostly.
Joona scored halfway through the second period.
Halifax trailed by one when Viktor carried the puck into the offensive zone and delayed along the right wall. The defense shifted toward him, expecting a pass toward the slot. Joona moved through the left circle unnoticed, arriving near the back post just as Viktor sent the puck through the seam.
Joona released it without settling.
The puck struck the inside of the post and entered the net.
For a moment, he did not react.
He looked toward the official, then behind the goaltender, as though seven games without a goal had made him suspicious of anything that appeared too easy.
The red light came on.
Joona raised both arms.
The Convoy bench emptied as far as the rules allowed, players leaning over the boards while Joona skated toward them. Viktor reached him first and wrapped one arm around his shoulders. Matvei remained in his crease at the other end, but Tessa saw him lift his stick and tap the crossbar twice.
She wrote quickly.
11:43 second. Salonen first NHL goal. One-timer from left circle off Sundberg pass. Looked at official before celebrating.
The goal tied the game. Halifax scored twice more in the third and won 4-2, with Matvei stopping twenty-nine shots.
Joona’s stall drew nearly every reporter afterward.
The young winger wore the team’s player-of-the-game jacket, an oversized navy coat decorated with a brass ship’s wheel over one shoulder. Someone had placed the game puck on the shelf above his head, still wrapped in white tape with the date and opponent written across it.
Joona answered the first several questions with a smile he could not suppress.
“I wait too long,” he said. “Now maybe goals come more easy.”
“What did you feel once you saw the light?” Tessa asked.
He searched for the word.
“Relief,” Matvei said from the neighboring stall.
Joona turned toward him. “Yes. Relief.”
Matvei continued untying his skates as if he had not contributed.
Tessa looked toward him.
His attention remained on the skates, but the corner of his mouth had lifted slightly.
Later, when the scrum around Joona thinned, Tessa crossed the room to ask Matvei about the game. She began with the third-period penalty kill, then asked what Joona’s goal meant to the team.
“He was tired of everyone asking,” Matvei said. He glanced toward Joona, who was now speaking with a Finnish reporter over the phone.
“He stopped trying to score tonight,” Matvei continued. “Then he score.”
Tessa paused her pen. “What do you mean?”
“Before, every shot is first goal. Every chance, he thinks too much. Tonight he just play.”
It was the best explanation anyone had given her.
She wrote it down carefully.
When she looked up, Matvei was watching her.
“You use right words?” he asked.
The question contained enough humor that she might have laughed if she were not aware of what sat beneath it.
“I’ll do my best.”
He nodded once.
It was not trust.
But it was no longer disbelief.
Tessa filed two stories from the visiting press box that night. The game story went first, followed by the Joona feature. By the time she sent the final version to her editor, the arena had emptied and the cleaning staff had begun collecting garbage from the rows below.
She packed her laptop and followed the signs toward the media exit, taking one wrong turn before finding the service corridor leading outside.
The Convoy had settled into the uneven rhythm of an NHL season.
They won three in a row, lost two and returned home with a record that inspired cautious optimism rather than celebration. Joona scored again in Boston and assisted on two goals against Detroit. Cole won his second start, then lost in overtime when Halifax failed to clear the zone.
Matvei remained good.
Not spectacular every night, but steady. His save percentage stayed comfortably above .910, his movement continued looking controlled and the questions about whether he was “back” became more frequent with every start.
Tessa resisted the word whenever possible.
Her editor did not.
“People want an answer,” Elaine Mercer said during a Monday afternoon meeting at the Tribune.
Elaine had served as deputy sports editor for six years and approached every conversation as though she had already cut three minutes from the time allotted for it. She sat behind a desk covered with printouts, page proofs and two coffee cups she seemed unaware belonged to her.
Tessa had come directly from practice, carrying her laptop bag and a notebook filled with quotes she had not yet transcribed.
“An answer to what?” she asked.
“Whether Belov is fixed.”
“He isn’t a kitchen appliance.”
“You know what I mean.”
“I do. I don’t think eight starts give us a final answer.”
Elaine leaned back in her chair. “Then the story can be that it’s too early for an answer.”
“That’s not the same story.”
“It’s still a Belov story.”
Tessa looked toward the page proof on the desk. Her articles about Matvei had performed better than nearly everything else she wrote. Elaine mentioned the numbers often enough that Tessa had started anticipating the conversation before it happened.
“He’s playing well,” Tessa said. “The technical changes look real. But Cole’s also playing well, and it’s early. I don’t want to declare anything resolved because he had a good month.”
“I’m not asking you to crown him for the MVP. I’m asking for a weekend analysis.”
Elaine pushed a sheet of analytics across the desk. Matvei’s rebound numbers, high-danger save percentage and goals saved above expected had all improved dramatically from the previous season.
“Talk to McLean,” she said. “Talk to the defense. Ask Belov what feels sustainable. Give me twelve hundred words by Sunday.”
Tessa looked over the figures.
It was a good assignment.
That irritated her too.
“I can do that.”
“Great.”
Elaine returned to the proof in front of her, signaling that the conversation had ended.
Tessa stood.
“And Tess?”
She paused near the door.
“You’re doing good work.”
The praise caught her off guard.
Elaine did not look up when she said it.
Tessa adjusted the strap of her bag. “I’ll have the story Sunday.”
She left before the editor could answer.
The feature never reached Sunday.
Montreal came to Halifax on Saturday night.
The first bad goal arrived eleven minutes into the opening period.
Montreal entered the zone on a routine rush, with the puck carrier staying wide along the left boards. Halifax’s defense kept him outside and eliminated the passing option through the middle. The shot came from above the circle without traffic.
Matvei dropped early.
The puck rose over his pad and beneath his blocker.
He looked behind him as it crossed the line.
The sound inside Atlantic Centre changed.
Not boos. Not yet.
The crowd released a collective breath that sounded too much like recognition.
Tessa entered the goal into her notes.
11:08 first. Clean shot from outside left circle beats Belov blocker. No screen. Should stop.
Matvei stopped the next three shots, but his movements looked less settled. He pushed farther outside his posts and recovered with more urgency than control. Pat stood behind the bench watching each sequence.
The second goal came late in the period.
A shot from the point hit Matvei high in the chest and dropped directly into the slot. Montreal’s center reached the rebound before either defenseman and lifted it into the net.
Matvei slammed the blade of his stick against the post.
The crowd’s reaction was louder this time.
Tessa watched him skate toward the corner during the stoppage. He removed his mask, took a drink and pressed the bottle against the back of his neck before returning to the crease.
His face revealed nothing.
She knew him well enough now to understand that meant very little.
Halifax entered the first intermission trailing 2-0.
The press box filled with conversation as writers rewrote their leads and television analysts replayed the goals. Tessa listened to Rick explain on the radio that Matvei had looked “alarmingly like the version everyone hoped had been left behind.”
The phrase was dramatic.
It was not entirely unfair.