Page 160 of The Off Limits Captain
Her expression tells me everything Silas is not going to want to hear.
“Minutes management,” she says. Clear. Practiced.
Finn looks up. “That means I’m not out.”
“It means exactly what I said,” Maren says. “Limited. Watched. No special teams.”
“I can play.”
“You can dress,” she says. “Do not confuse the two.”
His jaw works.
I should say something useful.
Instead, I say the only thing I can make true. “We need you long-term.”
Finn laughs once, sharp and humorless. “Everyone says long-term when they’re about to take something away right now.”
The room takes it and keeps it.
Maren’s face softens by half an inch. “I am not taking anything away. I am keeping the thing you want from costing you more than you understand.”
Finn looks away.
He is twenty-three.
He thinks understanding comes after consequence.
Most of us did.
I tell the room the same thing. Limited shifts. I’ll cover Finn’s zone. Roman takes more of the defensive-zone starts. Zach shades low when Finn’s pair is out. Nobody says injury. Nobody says concussion. Nobody says scared.
We say management.
We say rotation.
We say playoff pace.
The words do the job until they do not.
The third period is ugly. The kind of ugly that wins games and leaves nobody feeling proud of how. Volkov keeps us alive through two scrambles. Evan blocks a shot with his ankle and swears so loudly the linesman tells him to watch his mouth. Colt takes a stick under the chin, comes up bleeding, and grins at the ref like he has just been handed evidence.
Finn gets one more shift.
Short.
Protected.
He does nothing wrong.
That should feel like mercy.
It feels like a clock.
We win 2-1.
Barely.
