Breakaway

Chapter 12 - Breakaway

ERIC

I was just about to leave the practice rink and head home to Dana when Bergy stopped me. "Scotty wants a word before you go, Zee. In his office." You could barely hear his Swedish accent anymore after all the years he'd spent in the NHL, but there were still faint traces if you listened for them.

It was the first year Mattias Bergstrom was playing the part of an assistant coach, but he was just as intimidating as ever. He'd just retired as a player after last season. I was still more familiar with him trying to push me out of the goal crease than coaching me. He'd been a real bruiser of a defenseman in the league. Big body. Strong as an ox. He'd always had a real mean streak and played just on the edge.

Even though it was nice to not have him cross-checking me all the time anymore, I kind of missed playing against him. He had this way of bringing out the ultracompetitive nature in anyone. The better you were, the more he wanted to beat you and the harder he pushed you.

"Yeah, I'll be there in five."

I'd been expecting a meeting, at least somewhat.

Not only had we lost the game last night in Dallas, but we'd lost several players at least for the near future.

Boyler, who was our backup goaltender, had tweaked his groin in the pregame warm-up. He was going to have to sit and rest it for a week or two, minimum. Boyler had more than his fair share of experience with groin pulls.

Ny broke his leg while blocking a shot in the game. That meant our number one defenseman would probably be out at least six weeks, maybe eight. That's a hell of a long time to be without a guy like Ny, who excelled in every aspect of the game, particularly when a team is struggling like the Storm have been lately. He wouldn't be back until the playoffs, and whether we would make the playoffs or not was still very much up in the air.

Petey, who'd been centering the fourth line and making a name for himself as a solid penalty killer, broke his face on Stars captain Jamie Benn's fist. Well, technically he broke his orbital bone. But Petey wouldn't be back for at least a month, probably longer. When he came back, he'd have to wear a cage just like Burnzie had been wearing. Essentially, we would be without him for the remainder of the regular season, too.

And then there was Steve Matthews. Matty had been taken off the ice on a stretcher with a concussion. There was no way of knowing when he'd get back with us. He had gone in for a hit on Benn, but he came out on the worst end of it. Fell awkwardly. Hit his head hard on the ice. The impact snapped off his helmet, and his head bounced up before smacking back down again. It was pretty ugly.

That was when Petey had dropped the gloves with Benn. He'd been up ice and hadn't seen it happen. He'd just turned around and saw Matty down on the ice, not moving, and Benn standing over him. Made an assumption. Went out to stand up for his teammate. And broke his face.

I couldn't fault Petey for doing that. I probably would have done the same thing if I'd been out there. But now we were down four more bodies. Even with the guys who'd been sitting in the press box lately, we wouldn't be able to put a complete team on the ice for tomorrow's game without bringing in some call-ups from Seattle.

When I finished cleaning up my locker stall, I set my duffel on the bench. I made my way to Scotty's office.

He wasn't alone. Both of his assistant coaches, Bergy and Daniel "Hammer" Hamm were seated at the round table in the middle of the room, and Jim Sutter was looking out the window, both hands in his suit pockets. He turned and smiled at me when I came in.

No one else was smiling.

I couldn't blame them. We'd been playing like shit lately, the guys were dropping to injury left and right, and we'd just finished one of the worst practices of my professional career. I didn't feel much like smiling either.