Taking a Shot Read Online Free Page A

and RJ are familiar with each other.” RJ had taken over as the top-line center when they’d made the trade sending Sergei Ivanov and Pavel Spanov to the Islanders.
    I didn’t know if those two, Kally and RJ, had played together much when they were with the Islanders—at least not since Kally had stopped scoring—but they’d at least watched each other a lot for the last few years. That could help with knowing what the other guy would do.
    “Yeah. Fine.” Scotty didn’t look too thrilled, but he didn’t have much time to debate it right now—the ref was heading over to the bench to speed things along. “Kally, you’ll be with RJ and Eller now. Jonny, you’re moving up to Hank’s line. Let’s put this one away for Luddy.”
    He gave Zee a nod, and so he, Soupy, and I headed out for the next face-off. We were up two to one halfway through the third. Keeping this Colorado team limited to a single goal was a pretty rare feat. They tended to score early and often, which was a good thing for them since they had problems on the defensive side of things.
    We really ought to have scored more against them to this point, though, considering how leaky their defense could be. The less time that remained on the clock, the more desperate they were getting to score. Our one-goal lead wasn’t likely to hold up, but we needed to get the full two points for a regulation win tonight since we were tied with them in the playoff standings with less than a month remaining in the regular season.
    The officials were set to drop the puck in our offensive zone, but Colorado had sent Matt Duchene and his line out to take the face-off. Duchene had owned Zee on the dot all night.
    Zee motioned all of us over to him before we lined up, including Andrew Jensen and Keith Burns, our top two defensemen. “I have no chance of pulling it back. Not tonight. I’m going forward with it, straight for the net.”
    “Right,” Soupy said. “So be ready for rebounds.”
    “Exactly.”
    We got into position, with me on Zee’s right and Soupy on his left. If I could get past the Colorado D , I would be the first player to the crease. They should be expecting me to go to the middle and try to help Zee fish the puck out with all the difficulties he’d been having tonight.
    Even though I knew Zee planned to shoot it on the net, he could have fooled me. The way he was holding his stick, it looked like he had every intention of winning possession the traditional way and letting our D set up our attack. I tried not to grin and give anything away, but everyone knew I didn’t have a poker face.
    I got lucky that the linesman didn’t mess around with dropping the puck—I didn’t have to try to keep a straight face for very long. Zee shot it forward just like he’d planned and confused the Colorado D . Soupy and I both got past our guys. I got to the side of the net just after their goaltender made a kick save. Too bad for him he kicked it out right onto the tape of my stick.
    He was still sprawled on the ice from the save, so I roofed the puck. It went in just over the goalie’s glove and under the crossbar.
    “That was a fucking beauty,” Soupy shouted at me over the dual roars of the crowd and the goal horn.
    We all skated over to the bench and got fist bumps from the guys. Scotty gave us a nod so we stayed out for the next face-off.
    Now Colorado was really pushing back. Their forwards were skilled, speedy, and determined even during their worst games, and tonight wasn’t anything close to that. For the next several minutes, we were barely keeping our heads above water. If not for Nicky making one ridiculous save after another, they would have easily tied the game and moved ahead of us.
    They hadn’t, though, despite the fact that we were spending a hell of a lot more time in our own end than was good for us.
    With only a couple of minutes left, RJ’s line managed to clear the puck out of the zone so they could get off for a line change. Scotty