Page 14 of Rookie Rules

Stay wide.

Luca stayed wide.

The decision felt like allowing someone else to hold a door he could open himself.

Rowan crossed the red line with speed, shifted the puck to Finn, then drove between the defenders. Finn returned it inside. Luca held his lane and waited for the defense to collapse.

The pass never came. A defenseman broke the play and sent the puck into the corner.

"Again," Rowan said.

Luca circled back. "Your brilliant system appears broken."

"You left half a second early."

"I was open."

"You were becoming open. Different thing."

Finn skated between them on the reset. "I feel very stable right now."

The three of them gathered at the boards while Vale changed the defenders.

Rowan drew three short lines in frost with the tip of his stick. "Finn enters here. I stay under the puck. You hold until this defender turns his feet."

Luca looked at the marks. "And if he doesn't?"

"Then you are pulling him wide and Finn has the middle."

"So my assignment is to be threatening decor."

"Your assignment is to make both outcomes dangerous."

That answer lodged where Luca had expected another order.

Finn tapped the center line Rowan had drawn. "I vote for the outcome where I touch the puck."

Vale's whistle called them back.

The next rep failed because Finn's pass hit a skate. The one after that ended when Luca delayed too long and lost the puck at the line. Rowan corrected without raising his voice. Hold. Wait. Now. Again.

Each word landed like a marker driven into the ice.

Luca obeyed some of them.

He tested others.

On one entry, he slipped behind the defender instead of holding outside and nearly created a breakaway. Rowan killed the rep with a whistle from Vale before Luca could finish.

"Nobody knows where you are," Rowan said.

"I know where I am."

"That is the problem."

Luca skated close enough to stop directly in front of him. "You want me predictable."

"I want four other players able to make a decision before you make three."