Page 51 of From Ice to Home (The Heart of a Ranger #1)

LUCAS

“ W hat the hell was that out there?” Coach shouts, flinging his water bottle across the room.

The sound of it colliding with the trashcan in the corner echoes through the space. Everyone is sitting in front of their cubbies, breathing hard, wiping down sweat and doing what they need to do to regroup in the fifteen minutes we have before the third and final period starts.

We’re not rookies. We’re not some expansion team. We’re the New York Rangers and tonight we’ve been playing like we don’t even belong in this league.

Mitch is icing his ankle from where he stopped a puck. If it wasn’t for that save, we’d be in even more trouble right now.

“They have thirty-eight shots on goal,” Coach growls, his face red as he reads our pathetic stats off the tablet in his hand. “We have seven. Seven!”

He turns the screen toward us, like a weapon. “Face-off wins. Twenty-three percent.”

This time he looks at me. “Walker, if you can’t get that puck to your team, then tell me now. Losing possession when we could’ve scored in two moves is unacceptable. ”

He’s not wrong. My feet are slow, my passes aren’t connecting, and I’ve lost more face-offs tonight than I have all season. If I saw myself on film right now, I’m sure I’d bench myself.

Coach’s gaze sweeps the room.

“Where’s the urgency? Where’s the hunger? Did you leave it back in the States?” he yells, tossing the tablet on the chair next to him, pinching the bridge of his nose and taking a deep breath. “Our plays are falling flat! Each and every one of them.”

No one meets his gaze, the unspoken truth hanging in the air. The Canucks are all over us. Every rush dies down before it starts. They’re shutting us down before we even get started, blocking the neutral zone and our passing lanes.

“Murphy,” he barks, his focus shifting from me. “One more penalty and I’m going to bench you. We need discipline, not damage control.”

Declan has lost his discipline somewhere along the line. He’s basically been handing the Canucks powerplays on a silver platter.

Nikolai, who’s sitting a few spots down, is silently tapping his stick in that eerie rhythm of his as he takes in the rest of us. He’s the only one who doesn’t bother to take off his gear between periods. He’s all but standing on his head out there, but he can’t carry the team on his own.

Coach jabs his finger at Nikolai. “He saved thirty-four shots so far. About twenty of them shouldn’t even have made it into our zone.

Their defense scored half of their points!

This is the playoffs! The first game! It sets the tone for the entire series and you’re out there prancing around like it’s the bloody Ice Capades!

His voice cracks, his voice dangerously low. “Get it together or we’re going to be the first team in the history of the NHL to hand the Canucks a Cup. ”

He storms out of the locker room, slamming the door behind him.

Nobody moves. Gloves are still, water bottles are untouched. The only sound in the room is coming from Nikolai’s rhythmic tapping against his skates, like a clock winding down.

EJ leans forward, elbows on his knees, staring at the floor like it personally betrayed him. Lindgren has his towel over his head, his fists clenched, blocking out as much as he can. Even Declan is unnaturally quiet right now.

I drag my fingers through my hair, my gaze landing on the ring dangling against my chest.

I’m letting her down. I’m letting my team down.

And I feel it in my tight lungs and my heavy limbs.

Around me, the guys are trying to rally.

Some are retaping their sticks with straight faces while others haven’t even looked up since Coach left.

The air smells like sweat and frustration.

We can all feel it…the weight of a game one loss.

It’s already in our minds, the headlines tomorrow, the playbacks, and the interview questions.

We’ve had a tough time, but this is playoff hockey. Which means teams have come back from worse than this. But we can’t turn this around if we roll over and allow the Canucks to skate circles around us.

My gaze lands on Mitch. His ankle doesn’t look too good. It’s already purple and I’m sure it’s going to be black before the end of the night. If it gets worse, we’ll lose him for the rest of the series.

“You need to rest that for the final twenty?” I ask Mitch.

He looks up, his eyes fire-bright. Together with Declan, they’re our best defensive pair. But sometimes you have to lose the battle to win the war, and if that means we have to keep him off the ice, then so be it.

“I’m good,” he says, his voice filled with determination before applying more pressure. “Maybe just a shift or two. There’s no way I’m missing this. We’re turning this around, no matter what.”

I nod, then speak louder so everyone can hear me. “He’s right. We have to stop playing reactively. We need to take back control out there. This isn’t their game.”

A hush moves through the room, except for the dull hum of the AC and the sound of taping sticks. Grabbing my tape, I make quick work of taping up two new sticks too. The one that had Hannah’s verse taped onto it snapped in the second period.

Or maybe it snapped when I slammed it against the boards after I sent a puck wide and missed the net.

“We need to chip away at it,” EJ says, pushing back his blonde hair before putting his helmet back on and wiping his visor down with practiced ease. “We need to do this one goal at a time.”

“We’re down by four,” Lindgren says, a humorless chuckle escaping him as he tosses his towel aside. “And we have twenty minutes to get even. It should be easy enough.”

Then, like a thought that isn’t mine, a quiet whisper moves through me. I close my eyes, hearing it again. A voice that’s not my own, not Coach’s, but one I’ve come to know in the deepest parts of my soul.

‘You’re fine. She’s fine. You’ll be fine—as long as your eyes stay fixed on Me.’

Taking a deep breath, I try to focus on the whispered promise, but it’s not settling the storm inside of me. My heart is still racing, my lungs not filling all the way.

Next to me, Declan wipes down his own visor. “We have to make them feel us out there. Every shift. We can’t let them get cocky after game one.”

“Niko,” Mitch says, lifting his chin toward the goalie. “Can you keep them out for another twenty minutes? ”

“I’ll keep them out,” Niko says, not looking up. “But if we go into triple overtime, I’m coming after you .”

That earns a few tired chuckles. None of us have made Niko’s job easy tonight. We should be treating our goalie better than this.

Declan gets up, clapping his hands together. “You heard the man, let’s do this. Rangers on three.”

The rest of the team gets up, some rolling their shoulders and doing what they can to shake off the stench of hopelessness.

“Rangers!” The enthusiasm isn’t what it’s supposed to be, but it’s what we have.

Everyone follows Mitch, grabbing their gloves and snapping helmets into place. Heads down, sticks ready, we head back toward the ice. My legs are moving like they’re supposed to, but I still can’t get my mind to fall in line.

The team deserves better, and so does my wife.

And I don’t know how to give it to them.

I towel off and pull on a hoodie, still damp from the rushed shower. The cold air from the hallway bites at my skin as I head into the makeshift office that’ll be Coach’s home base for the next three days.

We lost against the Canucks.

We managed to scrape in two goals, no thanks to me. But it wasn’t enough to close the gap, not even enough to take it into overtime. Not enough to win.

And we were supposed to win.

Coach doesn’t look up when I step inside his office. He’s hunched over his laptop, the glare from the screen reflecting off his square glasses. The lines around his mouth are deep, his jaw tight, like he’s willing the screen to show a different outcome than the one we got tonight.

“You have to get your head together,” he says, his voice flat and tired. “Everyone and their uncles knew you weren’t present tonight.”

I close the door behind me. The fight in me rears up, ready to defend myself. But I keep my mouth shut, because I know he has a point. My head wasn’t in it tonight, no matter how hard I tried.

“It was all fun and games when you came back from Vegas,” he continues, taking his glasses off and rubbing his eyes. “We teased you, gave you a hard time, but that—“ he gestures out toward the arena, “—that was unacceptable.”

Taking a seat across from him I look him square in the eye. “I know. It won’t happen again.”

What more can I say? I’m a pro-athlete for a reason. None of it showed tonight. It’s clear why people always get married in the off-season. But I didn’t have the time or the luxury to risk Hannah walking out of my life again. And it might’ve cost me the game…it might even cost me the playoffs.

He rubs his hand across his mouth, carefully assessing me. “The media’s brutal. I get that. But you can’t carry that onto the ice.”

I nod. He’s not saying anything I don’t know already. I’ve been beating myself up about it ever since the Canucks scored their first goal tonight.

“I can’t control your personal life, Walker,” he says finally, his gaze sharp and serious. “I can’t control how you handle things behind the scenes. But I can control your ice-time.”

My stomach tightens. “What do you mean? Are you taking me out over one bad game?”

He lets out a humorless laugh, shutting the laptop in front of him.

“This isn’t some throwaway mid-season matchup. This is the playoffs. We don’t get second chances here.”

“I know,” I say, trying to keep my voice even despite the frustration and anger stirring inside of me. “That’s why I’m telling you, I’m committed. I’ll give you everything.”

Coach studies me for a minute. A minute that feels too long.