Chapter Twenty-Eight
Matvei looked like himself again six days before the regular season ended.
Not completely.
Tessa still noticed the hip because she knew to look for it.
She saw the extra stretch he completed before practice and the resistance band looped around his knees while the rest of the Convoy listened to an assistant coach near center ice.
She saw Pat McLean shorten one sequence that required repeated pushes toward Matvei’s right post and give Cole Bennett several additional repetitions instead.
The differences had become smaller.
Matvei no longer used his stick to help himself upright after every demanding drill.
He stopped rotating the right leg between shots.
When Pat sent a pass through the crease during a low-zone sequence, Matvei reached the opposite post early enough to set his feet rather than arriving while the puck was already being released.
The save struck his chest.
He held it.
Pat tapped his stick once against the ice.
Good.
Tessa watched from the press level with a notebook open beside her, though she wrote nothing about the movement.
Publicly, Matvei’s recovery remained technical.
The team said he had spent the previous weeks working through timing issues.
Pat talked about patience on his edges, cleaner reads and allowing plays to come toward him rather than chasing them.
Mike McDonough said his goaltender had looked sharper in practice and would receive another start before the team made any playoff decisions.
Nobody used the word hip.
Tessa had not used it either.
The tandem analysis remained one of the Tribune’s most-read stories of the month.
Readers debated the conclusion exactly as Elaine predicted.
Some praised Tessa for refusing to make a permanent decision from a bad stretch.
Others accused her of protecting a veteran whose reputation had outgrown his performance.
Cole’s supporters circulated the statistical comparison.
Matvei’s supporters focused on his experience and stronger full-season numbers.
The debate followed the Convoy into the final week.
Matvei did not mention the article for three days.
Tessa expected him to.
Unlike Atlanta, the story was not merely a description of one bad game. It examined his place in the lineup, questioned whether he remained the best option and concluded that he needed to prove himself again before April.
He had read this one.
Tessa knew because he asked whether she was home shortly after it appeared online, then arrived at her apartment carrying food from the Thai restaurant they had begun ordering from often enough that the woman at the front counter recognized his name.
He did not bring up the story during dinner.
He complained about the small table, moved two stacks of notebooks onto the floor and asked why Tessa owned four different charging cables that appeared to serve the same purpose.
She told him they did not.
He said they looked the same.
They watched the first half of a movie neither followed closely. Tessa waited for the conversation until waiting became more uncomfortable than beginning it.
“You read it,” she said.
Matvei remained against the opposite end of the couch, one leg stretched across the cushions with his foot resting near her hip.
“Yes.”
Tessa paused the movie.
“What did you think?”
He looked toward the frozen screen.
“You say Cole is good.”
“He is.”
“You say I am bad lately.”
“You have been.”
“Yes.”
“You say they should give him more starts.”
“I said he has earned more starts.”
“Same.”
“Not exactly.”
Matvei’s gaze shifted toward her.
“You also say I can be starter.”
“I said the team should wait.”
“You think I can.”
The difference mattered to him.
Tessa closed her hand around his ankle beneath the blanket.
“Yes.”
“Why?”
The question entered dangerous territory.
Because she knew the hip would improve.
Because she had watched him complete rehabilitation exercises and listened while he explained what the medical staff expected by the playoffs.
Because the private information Elaine did not have made Tessa believe the public decline was temporary.
She chose another truth.
“Because I watched you for the rest of the season.”
Matvei studied her.
“That is reporter answer.”
“It is also my answer.”
“You did not think Cole should start.”
“Not yet.”
He looked back toward the television.
“Good.”
Tessa almost laughed.
“That is all?”
“What else?”
“You could be upset.”
“I do not like story.”
“That is different from being upset with me.”
“Yes.”
“Are you?”
“No.”
The answer came easily.
Tessa’s fingers moved slightly against his ankle.
“Why not?”
“You write what you think.”
“That has not always reassured you.”
“No.”
“What changed?”
Matvei considered it.
“You.”
The word settled between them.
Tessa looked down at the blanket.
Matvei reached across the couch and touched her knee.
“You do not want Cole.”
“As the playoff starter?”
“Yes.”
“I want the Convoy to use the goalie who gives them the best chance.”
“Reporter.”
She smiled.
“Yes.”
Matvei’s hand remained on her knee.
“And you?” he asked.
She knew what he meant.
Not the reporter.
The woman sitting on her couch with his takeout containers in the kitchen and one of his shirts folded inside her dresser.
“I want it to be you.”
Matvei nodded once.
The satisfaction in his face was quiet and complete.
“Then I earn,” he said.
He did.
His first start after the Florida loss came against Tampa Bay.
Halifax entered the night one point behind Boston for second place in the Atlantic Division, with Toronto settled into the third position and no mathematical possibility of falling outside the postseason.
The Convoy had clinched a playoff berth two nights earlier without playing, after another result elsewhere in the conference eliminated the final team capable of catching them.
There had been no dramatic celebration.
Players learned through their phones after practice. McDonough congratulated them the next morning, then reminded the room that making the playoffs was the minimum expected from the roster they had assembled.
The remaining question was where Halifax would finish and whether Atlantic Centre would host Game 1.
Matvei stopped thirty-four of thirty-five shots against Tampa Bay.
The first period gave him enough work to determine immediately whether his movement had returned.
Tampa attacked through the middle, forcing Halifax’s defense to turn and defend passes across the slot.
Matvei reached each side cleanly. He controlled rebounds.
He stayed upright long enough to read releases rather than dropping before the shooter committed.
The only goal came on a power play through two screens.
Nothing about it belonged to the hip.
Halifax won 3-1.
In the dressing room afterward, Matvei stood in front of his stall rather than sitting. He answered questions about his recent stretch and whether the game felt like proof that he had moved beyond it.
“One game,” he said.
“Did anything feel different technically?”
“More patient.”
“Did the reduced practice workload help?”
“Maybe.”
Tessa remained at the back of the group.
She asked about a save late in the second period, when Matvei held his right edge while the puck carrier waited for him to drop before attempting a pass through the crease.
“You stayed on your feet longer than you had in some of the recent games,” she said. “Was that a read you felt like you were arriving at earlier tonight?”
“Yes.”
“What allowed you to wait?”
Matvei looked at her.
“Trust.”
Nobody else heard anything unusual in the answer.
Tessa did.
She wrote the word in her notebook.
Trust in his edge. Trust in his body. Trust that the play would reveal itself if he stopped moving before it existed.
The Convoy won again three nights later.
Cole started that game and stopped twenty-nine shots, keeping the playoff argument alive even while Matvei improved. McDonough refused to name a Game 1 starter afterward.
“We have another regular-season game,” he said. “Then we’ll worry about it.”
The final game came against Boston.
Second place in the division depended on it.
Halifax needed a regulation victory to move ahead of Boston and secure home ice. Anything else left the Convoy in third and sent them to Toronto for the beginning of the first round.
Matvei started.
The decision answered one question without McDonough needing to state it publicly.
Tessa arrived at Atlantic Centre for the morning skate and found the building already beginning to change for the postseason.
Playoff graphics had been installed along the main concourse beneath dark fabric, waiting to be revealed once the opponent and schedule became official.
Boxes of towels sat near the entrances. Arena employees tested lights and video sequences that would not be used during the regular-season finale.
Viktor skated before the team.
He had progressed from individual work to joining optional portions of practice in a noncontact jersey. The knee had responded well enough that the possibility of a postseason return no longer sounded purely hopeful, though the Convoy continued refusing to provide a timeline.
Tessa watched him take faceoffs against an assistant coach and move through short skating patterns before leaving the ice.
He did not look ready for a game.
He looked closer.
When the regular practice began, Matvei stopped every shot during the opening rush drill.
He also found time to strike Joona’s skate with a rebound after the winger scored and celebrated too long.
Joona chased him toward the crease.
The normalcy made Tessa smile before she remembered where she was.
The game that night felt like the playoffs had arrived early.
Boston scored first, finishing a rebound after an extended shift in Halifax’s zone. Matvei made the original save but could not control the puck through traffic.
Halifax answered late in the period when Carver won a battle behind the net and found Joona alone near the right circle.
Joona scored before the goaltender moved.