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The Turkeys got a little lazy after that. With a three-goal lead and their captain on hat trick watch, they weren’t putting much effort into the offensive zone. The only sparks that Henri noticed were on his line, and that was only because they were trying to set Dylan up. Which maybe wasn’t the smartest idea either, because they ended the second period 3-3.

“We need to reset,” Krzysztofek said. He was pinching the bridge of his nose and clearly doing some sort of breathing exercise to keep from losing his shit on all of them. “Keep it simple. Out of our zone. Battle for every puck. Make nothing easy for them. And no fucking penalties. You sit in that box, you might as well stay there. You won’t be seeing the rest of this game.”

“I think if you took a penalty,” Henri joked later on the bench, “he’d let you play.”

Dylan winked. They leaned so close together, they shared the same air. “Maybe, but I’d refuse out of principle.”

The Turkeys bolted down the hatches in the third period, per the coach’s request, but it left them with no scoring opportunities. No one wanted to over-commit and get burned, Henri included. Even Dylan was playing more conservatively than usual, taking his shots from higher up than was advisable.

“We know you’ve got a good shot,” Novak whined after they only got about ten seconds of zone time. “Would it kill you to, y’know, get closer first?”

“Would it kill you to, y’know, catch a pass?” Dylan shot back. They were both frustrated with each other; Henri made sure not to sit between them.

Halfway through the third, it wasn’t looking good for the Turkeys. They’d generated about two shots on goal to the Pythons’ nine. You didn’t need to be a hockey expert to know that was Bad with a capital B. Briggs was bailing them out big time in net, and they needed to do something to walk out of this one with some points.

Make it to overtime, Henri told himself at the start of each shift. Just make it to overtime…

That’s quitter talk, Baptiste, another voice scolded. It sounded like every coach he’d ever had. We want real wins.

“You know,” Dylan interrupted Henri’s internal argument, “if we score just one more goal, we can go home sooner.”

That sounded amazing.

One more goal, one more goal, one more goal…

It started as a regular breakout. Lynwood gained control behind the net and sent it up the boards. Novak got it and hit Henri with a pass as he broke through center. It was early enough in the shift that Henri had his lungs and his legs, so he took off at full speed. One move to get around the defenseman, and he was off to the races.

It was fun skating full speed. How long had it been since he’d gotten a clean breakaway? Henri raced across the blue line, coming in on the goalie. He watched the goalie square up, tried to find the spot most open, pulled in the puck for a quick wrister⁠—

The sudden vertigo of losing his balance. His limbs flailing to try to stay upright as he went headlong towards the ice. The instant spurt of pain as his left side hit the goalpost hard before he toppled down. Then he was sitting there, back against the boards as he tried to catch his breath and figure out what the fuck had happened.

Novak had a precarious grasp on Dylan, who was shouting at a Pythons’ defender. It was impressive, really, both that Novak could restrain Dylan despite being much larger and that the defenseman didn’t back down.

“Knock it off,” the ref said, gliding between the two of them. “Baptiste, come with me.”

“Are you fucking serious!?” Dylan yelled, but the ref gave him a sharp look.

“Penalty shot,” the ref said, and Dylan immediately shut the fuck up and stepped back with his hands raised in surrender.

“Thank you,” Dylan said. The words had a hard edge to them. It sounded like he’d rather have been allowed to take a few punches.

“C’mon, Baps.” Novak helped him up. “You ever done a penalty shot? I’m kinda jealous because I never have. But not really, because it looked like that hurt.”

As Henri glided forward, he realized it did in fact hurt a fucking lot. He could only imagine the bruise he’d find after the game and was glad his hockey pants had borne the brunt of it. The pain was enough of a distraction that he made it all the way to center ice before it sank in.

He had to take a penalty shot.

“You good, Baptiste?” the ref asked. “He got you pretty good there.”

Henri’s hand went self-consciously to his side. “I’ll be fine.” He’d played through a broken finger his third year, so this was nothing. No, his concern was more that he now held the whole fucking game on his stick. Goddammit.

“You got this, Baps!” came a call from the bench, followed by a chorus of more cheers that Henri’s brain didn’t bother to parse. What he did notice was Dylan standing there and motioning for him to just breathe.

He closed his eyes. He took a long breath in, held it, and let it out slowly. When he opened his eyes, he kept them focused on the net.

Going one-on-one with a goalie was hard. You tried to force them to commit too far to one side of the net, then you had to quickly take advantage of the opening that made. It was all about speed and mind games, because the goalie knew you were trying to do it. And this goalie would be upset about Henri’s earlier flukey goal. He’d give Henri absolutely nothing.

As Henri approached the circles, he didn’t like what he saw. He was running out of time. He had to make a decision⁠—