Chapter Twenty-Eight #2
The crowd remained standing through the next faceoff.
The second period passed without a goal, though Matvei made the most important save when Boston broke through on a two-on-one. He waited until the puck crossed the slot, pushed toward the right post and caught the shot against his shoulder.
Tessa watched him rise.
No hesitation.
No stick used for support.
He skated toward the corner and sent the puck away himself.
Halifax took the lead midway through the third on a power-play goal, then spent the final seven minutes protecting it while Boston attacked with the urgency of a team unwilling to surrender home ice.
The last minute felt longer than the first fifty-nine.
Boston pulled its goaltender. The puck remained in Halifax’s zone. A point shot struck traffic and disappeared beneath skates before Matvei found it moving toward the far post.
He pushed.
The right pad reached the puck.
The rebound escaped toward the middle.
McCrae swept it into the corner and absorbed a hit hard enough to send both players into the glass.
The clock continued.
Nine seconds.
Boston recovered the puck and attempted one final pass through the crease.
Matvei extended his stick.
The blade changed the angle enough for the puck to pass beyond the waiting forward.
The horn sounded.
Atlantic Centre erupted.
Halifax had finished second in the Atlantic.
Toronto would come to them.
Tessa looked toward the bench.
Players surrounded Matvei near the crease. Cole reached him first, striking the top of his mask with one glove. Joona arrived a second later and nearly knocked both goaltenders backward.
Matvei laughed beneath the mask.
Tessa turned toward her laptop.
The playoffs began in four days.
McDonough named Matvei the Game 1 starter the next morning.
The announcement barely qualified as one.
A reporter asked during the coach’s availability, and McDonough answered before the question ended.
“Belly’s starting.”
No caveat.
No suggestion that the crease remained unsettled.
“What separated him from Cole?” another reporter asked.
“He’s our guy.”
The phrase moved across social media before Tessa returned upstairs.
Elaine messaged almost immediately.
Elaine: Need a goalie piece. How he reclaimed it after the debate.
Tessa stared at the request.
Another Matvei story.
Another analysis of information she understood differently from readers.
This one felt easier.
She did not need the hip to explain the final week. The saves were public. His improved movement was visible. Pat could discuss the technical corrections without identifying their physical cause. McDonough had given her the framing himself.
He’s our guy.
Tessa wrote about Matvei earning the Game 1 start through performance rather than reputation. She included Cole’s excellent season and the value of having another trusted option. She did not portray the decision as permanent beyond the opening game.
Playoffs had a way of making every role temporary.
The final section returned to Matvei’s answer from after Tampa Bay.
Trust.
Pat explained it as trust in his reads and movement. McDonough described it as the organization’s trust in the player who had carried the crease for most of the year.
Tessa understood the word more broadly.
She left that version out.
Atlantic Centre looked different on the first night of the playoffs.
The changes were mostly cosmetic. Towels covered every seat. New graphics appeared along the boards and video screens. The league logo had been painted behind each net. Reporters who had attended only occasionally during the regular season occupied temporary seats inside the press box.
Still, the building felt transformed.
Fans arrived earlier and louder. The concourses filled with navy and silver nearly two hours before warmups. Every conversation carried the weight of what had happened in previous springs and what might happen now.
Halifax had not won the Stanley Cup since the franchise’s only championship thirty years before, long before the current roster arrived.
Tessa knew the history because Frank had written nearly all of it.
Now the first playoff game under her byline waited.
The realization should have made her think about her own career.
Instead, she watched Matvei enter the ice.
He tapped the posts.
Left.
Right.
Crossbar.
The routine had looked the same all season.
Tessa knew how much had changed inside it.
Toronto attacked from the opening faceoff.
The first ten minutes belonged almost entirely to the visitors. Halifax struggled to exit its zone cleanly, and every turnover allowed Toronto’s skilled forwards another opportunity through the middle.
Matvei stopped nine shots before the Convoy recorded its third.
The largest came on a breakaway. Toronto’s winger tried to pull the puck toward the right side and wait for Matvei to open.
Matvei stayed with him.
The shot struck his pad.
The crowd rose.
Halifax found its game after that.
Joona scored the first goal of the series, redirecting a shot from the point late in the first period. Carver added another early in the second after forcing a turnover behind Toronto’s net.
Toronto cut the lead in half on a power play.
Matvei stopped everything else.
Halifax won 3-1 after an empty-net goal.
The dressing room afterward contained the controlled satisfaction of a team unwilling to celebrate one victory too loudly. Players spoke about needing to improve their start and expecting Toronto’s push in Game 2.
Matvei answered six questions before Tessa spoke.
“You faced nine shots before Halifax generated much at the other end,” she said. “Did the early workload help settle you into the series, or did it feel like something you had to survive until the team found its game?”
“Both.”
A few reporters smiled.
Matvei continued.
“Playoffs start fast. You do not wait to feel ready.”
Tessa wrote it down.
They did not see each other after the game.
She filed two stories and a notebook before two in the morning. Matvei had meetings, treatment and the team’s recovery schedule. Their only private exchange came through text.
Matvei: One.
Tessa understood.
One win. Fifteen to go.
Tessa: Fifteen.
His answer took several minutes.
Matvei: Too many.
Tessa: That is how the playoffs work.
Matvei: Bad system.
She smiled in the empty press box.
Toronto won Game 2.
Halifax again started slowly, but this time Matvei could not hold the game in place long enough for the rest of the team to recover.
Toronto scored twice in the opening period.
The first came on a screened shot. The second entered beneath Matvei’s blocker from the circle, stoppable enough to produce an immediate reaction from the crowd.
Halifax tied the game in the second.
Toronto scored twice more in the third and won 4-2.
The series moved to Ontario tied.
The questions after the game returned quickly.
“Did you feel like the second goal was one you needed?”
“Yes.”
“Any concern that the issues from March are returning?”
“No.”
“What makes you confident?”
“Next game.”
Tessa watched him answer.
He did not look toward her.
That was fine.
They had learned how to let bad nights belong to hockey without requiring the relationship to absorb them immediately.
She wrote the loss.
She did not message him until they both reached Toronto the next afternoon.
Tessa: How are you?
Matvei: Toronto.
Tessa: I am aware of the city.
Matvei: Then good.
She knew better than to push.
Game 3 became the kind of playoff game people in both cities would remember differently.
Toronto remembered the missed opportunities.
Halifax remembered surviving them.
The game remained tied 2-2 through regulation and the first overtime. Matvei stopped forty-one shots before the second overtime began. The hip gave Tessa no visible concern. His movement remained controlled even as fatigue changed every player’s stride.
Joona ended it six minutes into the second overtime.
Carver carried the puck across the blue line and delayed long enough for Joona to enter behind him. The pass reached the Finnish winger between two defenders.
Joona shot high over the glove.
The arena became silent except for the small group of Halifax supporters near the upper level.
Joona disappeared beneath teammates near the boards.
Matvei remained at the opposite crease for a second, leaning both hands against the top of his stick.
Then he skated toward them.
Halifax led the series 2-1.
Tessa’s game story focused on Joona.
Her second story focused on Matvei’s forty-four saves.
She finished shortly before four in the morning.
He waited until she filed.
Matvei: You finish?
The question had become a ritual.
Tessa: Yes.
Matvei: Good goal.
Tessa: Lucky?
The answer came immediately.
Matvei: Very.
She laughed into the quiet media workroom.
Toronto tied the series two nights later.
Game 4 was not close.
Halifax allowed three goals in the first period, one into an empty net after a defensive-zone turnover and two through screens Matvei never fully found. McDonough pulled him after Toronto made it 4-0 early in the second.
Cole finished the game.
The final score was 5-1.
The questions returned before the teams left Toronto.
Would McDonough consider Cole for Game 5?
Had the crease become unsettled again?
Was Matvei’s Game 3 workload a factor?
McDonough dismissed all of it.
“Belly starts.”
He gave the answer after the game, before speaking with Matvei or Pat publicly.
The confidence mattered.
Tessa saw it in Matvei’s face when someone told him.
He did not smile.
He nodded once.
Game 5 returned to Halifax.
Matvei allowed nothing.
Toronto generated thirty-two shots, several from directly around the crease. He stopped all of them. Halifax scored once in the first period when McCrae created a turnover along the boards and found Carver alone in front.
The lead held for nearly forty minutes.
Toronto pulled its goaltender with two minutes remaining.
Matvei stopped four more shots.
Joona scored into the empty net.
Halifax won 2-0.
The series moved back to Toronto with the Convoy one victory from advancing.