Chapter Twenty-Nine
Viktor Sundberg returned to practice in a regular jersey two days before the second round began.
The change should have been subtle.
The red noncontact sweater disappeared. Navy replaced it. No announcement played over the speakers, and nobody gathered the team at center ice to acknowledge what it meant.
Still, the entire practice changed when Viktor stepped through the tunnel.
Joona noticed first.
He had been circling near the blue line, half-listening while an assistant coach explained the opening drill. The moment Viktor joined the group, Joona lifted his stick above his head and struck it twice against the ice.
Other players followed.
Gloves tapped against sticks. A few voices carried from the benches. Cole Bennett leaned over the boards and shouted something Tessa could not hear from the press level.
Viktor smiled, shook his head and skated toward the line as though the reaction embarrassed him.
It did not stop him from taking an extra lap through the middle of the group.
Tessa watched from Frank Donnelly’s old seat with her notebook open.
She had spent most of the previous four months recording Viktor’s absence in increments.
Did not skate.
Skated alone.
Skated before practice.
Joined for individual drills.
Noncontact jersey.
Limited contact.
Each step had been treated cautiously enough that nobody wanted to write the sentence waiting at the end.
Viktor Sundberg was coming back.
The captain had not played since before the international break. The setback in January removed every meaningful timeline and created the possibility that his final game might already have happened without anyone recognizing it as such.
Now he wore navy.
Mike McDonough did not ease him into practice.
The opening drills were controlled, but the contact increased quickly. Viktor took line rushes between two familiar wingers. He defended below the goal line, absorbed a hit along the boards and stayed on his feet when McCrae leaned into him during a battle near the crease.
Tessa watched the right knee.
Everyone did.
Viktor’s stride lacked some of its usual length. He turned more carefully toward one side and occasionally glided through a section where he once would have driven harder.
But he remained upright.
He finished the drill.
He moved toward the next one without looking at the bench.
By the end of practice, sweat had darkened the collar of his jersey and his face had gone red with effort. He stayed with the group through the final stretch, one leg extended while Joona talked beside him.
Pat stood near Matvei at the opposite end.
Tessa looked there automatically.
Matvei had played every minute of the first round. The hip no longer visibly affected his movement, though the medical staff continued treating him between games and limiting unnecessary repetitions. He had stopped discussing it with Tessa unless she asked directly.
The answer remained the same.
Better. Not perfect. Enough.
He looked toward the press box.
Tessa did not know whether he could see her clearly through the glass. She felt his attention anyway.
Then Viktor threw a glove at Joona.
The group below erupted in laughter.
Tessa wrote that down instead.
The dressing room remained closed longer than usual after practice. When reporters were finally allowed inside, Viktor sat beneath his stall wearing a black team shirt and compression leggings. A towel rested around his neck.
The crowd around him filled nearly the entire aisle.
“How did it feel?” Rick asked.
“Like practice.”
Viktor smiled after the answer, taking enough edge from it that the room laughed.
“Any hesitation with the knee?”
“No.”
“None?”
Viktor considered that.
“I would be lying if I said I never thought about it. But once the drill starts, you either play or you don’t. I played.”
“Are you available for Game 1?”
“That’s the plan.”
The room sharpened.
Tessa’s pen stopped above the notebook.
“Has the medical staff cleared you?”
“Yes.”
“Will there be a limit on your minutes?”
“You’ll have to ask Mike.”
“Do you expect to return in the same role?”
Viktor looked toward the stalls around him.
“I expect to help.”
The answer sounded rehearsed but carried enough emotion that Tessa did not dismiss it.
She waited through questions about timing, conditioning and the risk of returning during a playoff series against one of the most physical teams in the league.
Then she asked, “Was there a point after the setback when you thought you might not play again this season?”
Viktor’s expression changed.
“Yes.”
He did not elaborate immediately.
Tessa waited.
Viktor looked down at his hands.
“There was a stretch where the knee wasn’t responding, and the calendar keeps moving whether you do or not. You start doing the math. How many weeks to skate. How many more to take contact. How many games might be left by then.”
He rubbed one thumb across the opposite palm.
“You try not to get ahead of yourself, but it’s hard.”
“What kept you working toward it?”
Viktor looked across the room.
Matvei stood near his stall speaking quietly with Cole. Joona remained several feet away, watching the scrum despite pretending to reorganize his bag.
“The room,” Viktor said. “You sit upstairs and watch them fight through the season. You want another chance to be part of it.”
Tessa wrote the answer carefully.
“Is there anything you feel you still need to prove?”
Viktor smiled.
“To myself? Probably. To everyone else, I’m too old to worry about that.”
The laugh returned.
Tessa did not believe the second half.
Neither did Viktor.
Boston arrived in Halifax with the reputation of a team built for exactly this kind of series.
They were heavy without being slow, physical without needing to chase fights and experienced enough that no road environment unsettled them. They finished one point behind Halifax in the division after losing the regular-season finale, then eliminated Tampa Bay in five games.
The matchup immediately became the most discussed series of the second round.
Matvei against Boston’s veteran goaltender.
Halifax’s speed against Boston’s structure.
Viktor returning against a team that would test the knee every time he touched the puck near the boards.
McCrae’s deadline acquisition made sense in a way it had not against Toronto. He would dress every night.
Game 1 began with Viktor’s name announced last.
Atlantic Centre stood before the public-address announcer reached the final syllable.
The roar began near the lower bowl and climbed through the building until Tessa felt it beneath the press-box desk. Viktor stepped onto the ice alone, raised his stick once and circled toward the bench while teammates struck theirs against the boards.
Tessa watched through the glass.
She had covered his injury as a sequence of updates, setbacks and cautious statements. The crowd received him as though he had returned from somewhere much farther away.
Matvei stood near the crease, mask pushed on top of his head.
Viktor skated past and tapped the side of it.
Matvei said something.
Viktor laughed.
The series began six minutes later.
Boston hit him on his first shift.
The contact came legally near the corner, shoulder into shoulder as Viktor attempted to protect the puck. He absorbed it, moved the puck behind the net and stayed involved in the play.
The crowd reacted louder than the hit deserved.
Viktor took another check before the period ended.
He finished both shifts.
Halifax scored first when Joona carried the puck through the neutral zone and drew two defenders toward him before finding Carver entering behind the play. Carver shot low beneath the blocker.
Boston tied it on a deflection.
The game remained even until early in the third, when Viktor won a faceoff in the offensive zone and went directly toward the net. The point shot struck his skate, then a defender’s pad.
The rebound moved toward Joona.
He scored before the goaltender found it.
Viktor earned the secondary assist.
It was not dramatic enough for the building’s reaction.
Halifax won 3-1 after an empty-net goal.
Matvei stopped thirty shots.
Viktor played fifteen minutes and forty-two seconds.
Tessa’s first story focused on his return.
Her second handled the game.
By the time she reached the dressing room, Viktor had already completed treatment and dressed. He remained seated while reporters gathered.
“How does the knee feel now?”
“Attached.”
The room laughed.
“Any concern after the hits?”
“No. That was part of coming back. I wasn’t going to know until somebody hit me.”
Tessa asked about the assist.
Viktor shrugged.
“Joona did the work.”
Joona shouted from across the room, “Correct.”
Viktor looked toward him.
“I take it back.”
Another laugh.
The room felt lighter than it had for months.
Tessa found Matvei afterward.
His stall carried a smaller crowd because Viktor owned the night.
“Boston generated most of its offense from below the circles,” she said. “How important was it to control the first rebound against a team that sends so much traffic toward the crease?”
“Very.”
Matvei looked toward the recorder.
Then at her.
“If first stays, second comes.”
“Did having Viktor back change anything defensively?”
“Yes.”
“How?”
“He talks.”
Viktor heard from across the room.
“Too much, apparently.”
Matvei’s mouth shifted.
Tessa kept the smile from becoming visible.
Their private celebration came through messages after she filed.
Matvei: He is loud again.
Tessa: You said that was helpful.
Matvei: On ice. Not room.
Tessa: You missed him.
The response took almost a minute.
Matvei: Yes.
Then:
Matvei: He takes your attention too.
Tessa smiled at the empty screen.
Tessa: Jealous?
Matvei: No.
She waited.
Matvei: Maybe small.
Boston won Game 2 in overtime.
The loss hurt because Halifax led twice.
Joona scored early. Boston tied it before the first intermission. Viktor restored the lead in the second with his first goal since returning, finishing from near the crease after McCrae forced a turnover along the wall.
The crowd remained standing through the next faceoff.
Boston tied it again late in the third.