Tipping back in the chair, Sid craned his neck to look up at him. He inhaled through his nose and caught the warm-metal scent of Geno’s post-heat bleed. “I can help you with that, too,” he murmured.

It hits him like a goddamn bus right after his and Crosby’s power play goal puts Canada up 5-0. Not the heat itself—that’s little more than a prickle under his skin—but the knowledge that one’s coming. Here. In Prague.

“Does it hurt?” Conor asked quietly. And, shit, now he had to look. Scott forced his gaze down and saw them—spurs of bone splitting his knuckles. It wasn’t just swelling from the few punches he’d thrown. That was bone. This was happening.

Every guy in the NHL lived hungry during the season, and they were all running on empty now.