Page 97 of The Forbidden Center

“Nothing could.”

Down at the far end Roman leans over the right circle with Brick on the wall and Evan McKinney up top. Thirty seconds, six skaters, a clean sheet of ice, and the best defenseman in this conference standing exactly where the puck wants to end up.

We’ve got four men, a goalie, and a one-goal lead Sully invented for the drill.

This is a better use of me than standing at the far blue line waiting for a pass my shoulder might not like. It’s also the kind of better that shortens a career if the men upstairs decide it’s the only kind left.

I set my feet across from Roman.

He turns his bottom hand over.

Pull to Brick.

“Left wall,” I tell Mack.

“Saw it.”

Sully drops the puck. Roman’s stronger through the first inch and I let him have it, and then I turn my right skate, jam his blade from underneath, and kick the puck in behind my own heel.

Mack’s already there. Brick closes the wall. Mack banks it off Brick’s skate instead of trying to beat him clean and it comes back into the circle where I am moving.

I take it on the backhand.

My left fingers go hot inside the glove, and for one stride the bottom hand is not attached to anything I can feel.

I lock the wrist, let the shaft ride against my palm, and use Roman’s own stick pressure to turn the puck toward the boards.

It looks like a chip. It is a chip by the time anybody could argue about it.

Mack gets body position, I cut underneath him, take the return off my right skate, and send it the length of the ice.

Whistle.

“Again,” Sully says.

No praise, no correction. The best kind of shift.

Roman resets across from me. “Lucky foot.”

“Educated foot.”

“Old foot.”

“Still beat you.”

The puck drops. This time he ties me up and gets it back to the point, and McKinney walks the line looking for a lane.

I step into it before the puck leaves his stick and take the shot off the front of my right shoulder.

The joint goes white and comes back, familiar and exact.

Usable. Not free.

The puck skips off me to Brick and he shoots it through Mack’s legs and our goalie traps it against his ribs.

Sully points at the clock. “Blue holds. Red changes.”

Roman skates out. Another unit comes over the boards.