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Now the top line says: HALE — CASTEL — SOREL.

Brandt's name is on the third line. In the middle.

Nobody says anything. Then Brandt pushes through the group, looks at the board for about three seconds, and skates off toward the far end without a word. Kowal follows him.

I skate over to Moretti, who's standing at center ice with his arms folded, watching Brandt go.

"Coach."

"Hale."

"I'm a checking center. I haven't played top line in four years."

"You haven't had a winger who could finish in four years." He doesn't look at me. "Gus says you two have been doing extra ice. Late."

My whole body goes cold.

"Drills," I say. "His defense."

"I know. I've seen it. His plus-minus is up nine since the L.A. trip." Moretti finally turns his head. "Whatever you're doing at midnight, it's working. You read him like you've been playing with him for ten years. He finds you when nobody else can. I'd be an idiot not to put that together."

"Brandt's going to⁠—"

"Brandt's going to play third-line center until he earns his way back. That's hockey." He looks at me a little longer than he needs to. "You got a problem with it?"

"No, Coach."

"Good." He blows his whistle. "Line rushes! Top line first!"

It's different from the first shift.

I've played seventeen years. I've had good linemates. I've had great ones. I played two seasons with a guy who's in the Hall of Fame now, and we had something, a rhythm, where I knew where he'd be before he did.

This is not that. This is something I don't have a word for.

We play Minnesota that night. On our second shift, I win a draw back to Webb, and I turn up the ice, and I don't look, I just know he's there. Wide, on the left, already moving. I throw the puck to empty ice, to a spot where nobody is, and a half second later he's there, and it's on his stick, and he's gone.

He doesn't score. He hits the post. The ping.

"That was yours," he says on the bench, breathless.

"It was a bad pass."

"It was a perfect pass. You didn't even look."

"I didn't have to."

He stares at me. Sorel, on his other side, stares at both of us.

On the next shift, he scores. On the one after that, I do. It's my first goal in a month, a tip-in off his shot from the point, and it's ugly, a deflection off my shin pad, but it counts. The building goes up. He gets to me first.

He jumps on me. He wraps both arms around my neck and hangs there, all his weight, yelling something in French right into my helmet, and I grab him around the waist so he doesn't fall, and for one second I'm holding him in front of nineteen thousand people and every camera in the building, and it's fine.

It's hockey. Everybody hugs after a goal.

I hold on one second too long anyway. I can't help it.

After the game, they put us in front of the logo wall together. That's new too. Priya stands off to the side with her printout, looking nervous.