"It can't get any worse," said Nicklas Backstrom in an interview before the first round of the 2018 playoffs. He should have known to be careful of the jinx something like that could bring, but now it's there, and Nicke and the team are determined to get rid of it by any means necessary.

Beau was willing to bet that a lot of people's weird superstitions started out like his. Something that had been a dumb bet or stupid competition in college or Juniors, but then fuck if they didn't score that night. So it became a thing, and since enough of them have weird fucking things they'd rather not get chirped about, it just becomes normal. All that said, Beau probably could have braced himself a little better for the inevitable, which was Flower pausing in his rapid-fire and unintelligible conversation with Tanger to grin like the cat that had caught the canary and ask, in the most delighted tone possible, "Sunshine, are you wearing panties?"

The first time Nicke sees a mature pair of player wings in person—not pre-downs, not rookie wings, but a full wingspan—it's the April before the draft, and he's in a dressing room in Latvia, trying not to be star-struck by his own teammates. Or: The NHL gives you wings.