#to get his opponent away from the puck. its a good attempt at a clear... i think SAG get it back in and score not too long after but its de | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

your-iron-lung · 8 years ago

Text

Mixed Up 21 | Foreign Object |

Chapter Word Count: 6976

Pairings: Zoro/Sanji

Genre: Comedy, Drama, Romance

Chapter Warnings: Strong Language, Violence

Previous Chapters: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16 , 17, 18, 19, 20

Next Chapter: 22

Later, Sanji couldn’t say whether or not he’d made the right decision regarding not telling Nami about Robin. At the time, he’d felt that as long as he kept an eye on her nothing would happen. There wasn’t anything she could do if he saw a chance to intervene; if he saw it coming, he could stop it, he was sure.

He’d been wrong. Things happened outside of his control that didn’t allow him time to do anything but watch as terrible things transpired, and he had no way of knowing if informing Nami before they happened would have changed the outcome at all.

Could it have all been avoided? Or would it have just caused something worse to happen instead?

Not knowing if he’d made the right choice left him with a guilt that he would carry for a very long time.

Before any of that happened, though, he’d merely tried to enjoy the game.

Down on the ice, things were looking rough. The second period started hectically, with the Whiskey Peak Cacti coming back from the intermission with an offense that was so overwhelming, Zoro’s team was taken off guard. The sudden switch in momentum had allowed the Cacti to slip a goal into their net almost as soon as the game had resumed.

They’d won the face off and immediately gone to swarm the goalie to the point where he couldn’t figure out where the puck had gotten to until it scored. The Bison seemed shocked, but didn’t allow themselves to linger on how they’d let that happen. They rebounded ferociously, and with the game tied now, both teams played with matched aggression- the Bison weren’t going to be taken off guard again. Bodies slammed into the Plexiglas barrier at an almost consistent rate as the players tried to bully their way to a victory.

It was an exciting, rousing game that was incredibly intense. The announcer was speaking as fast as he could to try and keep up with the action so he could accurately broadcast it.

Sanji did his best in balancing his time between keeping an eye on Robin and watching Zoro play. He found that he was, still, inexplicably nervous about her being there. She didn’t seem to be doing much of anything from what he could see, but just knowing she was there made him uneasy. It looked like she didn’t even want to be there, which kept him wondering why she was there at all when it became obvious she wasn’t a fan of the sport.

People around her were going as crazy as Nami was. The fact that she wasn’t vocalizing at all or standing up to shout or doing anything made her stand out simply because she wasn’t participating. An air of foreboding surrounded her as she sat there; a dark, stationary figure of boredom that managed to disguise the omen of misfortune she brought with her.

It was difficult for him to focus on anything else. Her solemn beauty was as threatening to him as it was alluring, but he managed to turn his attention to the ice whenever Nami or the rest of the audience cheered about something. Despite how involved he became in supporting the team, he couldn’t shake how apprehensive he was feeling with Robin so close. It curdled in his gut, trying to upset it as he attempted to figure out what, if anything, was meant to happen by Robin being there.

“Are you alright?” Nami had asked him once, catching him off guard as he was staring away at Robin’s section. “Want a drink or anything?”

She’d already begun losing her voice at that point, and spoke in a raspy voice that she tried to clear with a cough. He’d assured her he was fine, and yelled alongside her when Zoro violently body-checked one of the Cacti into the wall, earning him a penalty.

His nerves had never been so bad; not since he’d been a child, at least. He’d had a problem with anxiety growing up, and now it seemed that it was coming back in full force. It just existed within him for no discernable reason. Something was wrong, and not knowing what it was was impacting him negatively.

As he watched the game, he found his heartrate would pick up whenever Zoro was called in to play. He didn’t know if it was in correlation to his anxiety or if he just got a thrill out of watching him brutalize his opponents; either way, it had been making him uncomfortable.

With Zoro off the ice, even if only for a few minutes, Sanji tried to relax. There was no goddamn reason he should be feeling this way, he thought. He needed to drag himself out of it before he gave Nami reason to worry too, even if she looked to be in too high of a spirit to be impacted by whatever was bothering him. The beer and the adrenaline had rendered her immune to his discomfort.

Sanji was grateful for that, as it gave him space to think.

‘Try to think of it logically,’ he thought to himself. ‘What on earth can one woman do from the stands, for fucks sake?’

He chanced a glance back at Robin to make sure she was, in fact, still in her seat, and found that her gaze was fixed on Zoro sitting in the penalty box. The way she was looking at him made his stomach twist, and he almost groaned aloud from it.

Sanji didn’t have clear vision of her from his seat. There were enthusiastic fans blocking his direct line of sight that made him almost want to scream at them to “Sit the fuck down!”, but even still he could recognize her expression from a distance.

Zeff had pulled a similar look on him when he’d found him as a kid. It was something he’d never been able to forget, because it was a true expression of looking at something and knowing it’d been severely mistreated and knowing there was nothing you could do to help it.

It was pure agony in its simplest form.

The look on Robin’s face was direct and concentrated, but didn’t hold interest, malicious or otherwise. She didn’t even look bored anymore. No, instead she looked sorrowful, gazing down at Zoro in the box with a look of utter pity that was so strong he swore he could feel her emotions deep in his heart.

What the hell did that mean?

He followed her gaze down to Zoro, who looked annoyed and frustrated with where he was sitting. On the ice, one of the players’ stick broke and lay in pieces along the outer rim of the wall. Sanji attempted to make eye contact with him to try and direct his attention to where Robin sat in an effort to at least warn him, but Zoro was focused intently on what his team was doing without him.

Though, what exactly was it that he was trying to warn him of?

What could she do?

Taking a deep, calming breath that did little to quell his nerves, Sanji forced himself to remember that Robin was a good person. After all, she’d helped them out of a tight spot in the past. Why would she have helped them then only to harm them now? If he were analyzing Zoro’s account of what happened that night correctly, then wouldn’t it make more sense for her to be on their side? She’d acted like a double agent that night, which made her a secret ally of theirs, kind of.

He frowned suddenly. His mind began working overtime to process that thought- the realization that she was on their side-, when he was roused abruptly from his thoughts by a loud and disappointed groan.

With the numbers advantage in the Cacti’s favor, they’d scored again.

Nami hollered obscenities as the Whiskey Peak players rallied around the man that had scored in a hug of comradery, encouraging one another as Zoro’s team skated around them dejectedly. With all his focusing on Robin, Sanji hadn’t seen how they’d scored, but listening to Nami made it seem like it’d been dirty.

The goalie on the home team was beginning to look overly agitated as a result. He was gesturing around wildly while shouting things that Sanji couldn’t hear over the chatter of the audience. One of his teammates tried to calm him down, but the goalie had already begun leaving his goal to confront the player that had scored against him. Nami’s eyes lit up as she stood up and started to chant:

“Fight! Fight! Fight!”

The referees seemed content to let it happen. They skated off to the side to watch as the Cacti players disbanded around the man who scored, leaving him and the goalie to get up into each other’s faces. They began to shove one another roughly as the whole crowd took up Nami’s chant:

“Fight! Fight! Fight!”

The chant echoed around the auditorium, swarming his senses as it rose in volume.

He knew it was meant to bolster the team and encourage the inevitable, but to Sanji it just sounded like a threat. A loud, all-consuming, booming, ominous threat.

The voices rose together in a fever pitch, sounding hollow and frightening as they chorused together. Sanji’s earlier thought suddenly resolved itself as Zoro’s penalty timer let up and he began to leave the box. It was with dawning horror that he realized that Robin wasn’t there to do anything. Given their history, short as it was, didn’t it stand to reason that she was there to protect them again? As a double agent, could it be that she was there to prevent something from happening? Something that had been organized in advance and was now building, biding its time as it got closer and closer to happening.

But what was it?

It was maddening to know that there was something going on that he couldn’t quite figure out. It was as above his head as the arena rafters were that harbored all those maliciously chanting voices. Frantically Sanji stood up with the rest of his section, trying to catch what was unfolding on the ice. He noticed that Robin, too, was desperately trying to keep an eye on the action below, straining her neck with her clear, cold blue eyes as wide as they’d open.

It was halfway through the second period when the fight broke out in full force.

The goalie tore his own helmet off and fists began swinging as the two men began to duke it out, sliding across the ice as the brunt of their blows bore them momentum across the slick surface.

Zoro had been on his way back to the bench when he realized his goalie was fighting. Some of his teammates jumped over the bench divider and were already skating over to help, passing him by as he casually made his return. He looked to his coach, who was yelling at the refs to do something, goddammit when he caught Zoro’s eye and gestured for him to intervene.

He began skating back towards them almost lazily, certain the fight would be disrupted before he got a chance to really do anything. Sure, he was an enforcer and it was technically his job to fight, but most of his team were already over there. Mihawk was still angrily yelling at the referees, but it seemed that they’d developed selective hearing as they refused to break up the fight.

Tuning out the chant that had erupted in the stands, he wondered what the motivation behind the refs letting them fight was. Their league might have been a minor one, but it still had rules and regulations against fighting. He couldn’t help but notice that this was out of the ordinary as, in the past, players had been ejected from the game for trying to start riots like this, and yet the refs were turning a blind eye to this one.

A bunch of the Bison had swarmed up with the goalie, rallying behind him as they ganged up on the lone Cacti player trying to hold his own against them all. That was odd, Zoro would later remember thinking. Where were the rest of the Cacti? Why weren’t the refs doing anything about this obviously one-sided fight?

What the hell was going- WHAM!

Having been distracted by his own thoughts and focus on getting to the fight, he hadn’t realized that a group of the Cacti had been rushing towards him. He was violently checked against the wall, where his helmet cracked sharply against the wood paneling before he fell to the ice, scrambling to get back up.

They outnumbered him 5 to 1, but the rest of his team was focused on fighting with the goalie. None of them saw him go down as the Cacti prevented him from getting up, piling onto him as he struggled against them.

One of the Cacti players pried the helmet off his head while Zoro struggled and shouted in an effort to be seen or heard. Where the fuck were the refs?! This wasn’t fucking legal play. They threw his helmet off to the side and then punched him across the face, smacking his head against the ice and drawing blood from his nose.

He hissed in pain and tried to make more noise, but the audience’s chant was louder than he was. They were so engrossed in the fighting that his scuffle with the other Cacti players went largely unnoticed, tucked up beside the wall opposite of the main attraction.

Still he struggled, wriggling as best he could against the ice and the weight of the hockey players holding him down against it. The cold of it pressed against his face as someone shoved him roughly into it again, reinforcing the fact that they’d broken his nose as the pain of it overtook him.

“Hurry, do it quick!” One of the players said, sounding frantic as they wrestled Zoro into place.

“What the fuck are you doing?” he found himself shouting in retort, trying to turn his body onto its side to redirect some of the weight off. “Get the fuck off me!”

Managing to wriggle himself out of the heap just a bit, he looked up in time to see another one of the Cacti players skating rapidly towards them. The others were punching him, hurting him, hindering him just enough to prevent him from rising to his feet but in a way that avoided having much attention be drawn to them with jerky, restrained movements. From the stands he thought he could hear someone shouting his name right as the other Cacti teammate tripped over the broken hockey stick that had been left on the ice and came sliding at him feet first.

Sanji had been the one to shout; he’d seen what had happened as it happened, even though it appeared as if no one else had. Once he said Zoro’s name, though, Nami was snapped out of the crowd mentality she’d been swallowed up in. She stopped screaming and followed his gaze to where Zoro lied under a heap of yellow-green jerseys just in time to catch the impact of what happened.

She gasped and screamed, putting her hands to her face in horror as the blade of the skate connected with Zoro’s prone face.

The effect was immediate. Blood was on the ice in no time, flooding Sanji’s mind with memories of the video Zeff had shown him of the poor athlete whose jugular had been slit during a game. His heart nearly seemed to seize in his chest as he heard the anguished howl of pain and knew he could do nothing to help him.

One quick look around at Robin told him that this was what she’d been hoping to protect them against as her mouth fell open and that sorrowful look was replaced with one of defeat.

The player that had slid his skate into Zoro’s face almost seemed to be kicking at him repeatedly as the throng under which he was buried tried to mask their actions. The fighting chant was still going strong before it finally climaxed into one heroic cheer that burst forth when it appeared that the Bison had won the initial fight. The referees finally intervened, blowing their whistles and skating forward to distribute penalties. The Cacti players scattered back to their bench as Zoro’s teammates congratulated each other on a well-fought brawl, current score be damned.

Then it appeared as if everyone noticed at once that there was a player downed on the ice. He was on his hands and knees, with one hand pressed up against his face, and oh, lord, there was so much blood.

Zoro’s glove was stained crimson as he tried to stunt the flow by applying as much pressure to the side of his face as he could muster. It was impossible to tell from Sanji’s standpoint just how severe the injury was, but the way his blood was draining out in thick rivulets down his arm, pooling onto the ice below told him it was bad. Real bad.

“And it looks like number 68, Roronoa Zoro, is downed on the ice following an intense altercation between teams-” the announcer said, unable to keep the shock out of his voice as he shakily narrated what was happening. “There’s blood on the ice here, folks, and a lot of it.”

When Sanji was finally able to look away, he saw that Nami’s face was incredibly pale, and it looked as though she might pass out at any moment. Sanji feared for her, but feared for Zoro more. He wasn’t moving; didn’t make any effort to right himself, and the pool of blood that had begun to spread out among the ice only grew larger.

“Someone do something!” Nami shrieked. “Don’t just leave him out there!”

A general sense of panic then consumed the crowd. People reacted differently; Sanji could hear people gasping, screaming, and even heard someone puke as Zoro’s coach rushed out unsteadily to where his player lie wounded. He crouched down beside him, placing his arm across Zoro’s back as he tried to ascertain the extent of which he’d been wounded.

The shocked way he recoiled when he managed to get a glimpse told everyone all they needed to know.

“Oh my God,” Nami said, and then kept repeating, “oh my God, oh my GodohmyGod-”

Sanji felt stupid standing there watching, unable to do anything. A numbness started in his toes and then crept up throughout his body as he watched the Bison’s coach wave for help. A few of Zoro’s teammates hurriedly skated out, and together they awkwardly got him to his feet so they could quickly skate him off the rink. Zoro remained hunched awkwardly, clutching at his face with his thick, stained glove as they bumped off the ice and rushed him away and out of view.

No one seemed to know what to do then. Even the announcer had gone quiet. Sanji’s eyes were trained on the blood stains that had been left behind, and noticed with some degree of disgust that there was a red trail that had been etched into the ice from the skate that had sliced Zoro’s face. The player who had carved him up was nowhere to be found, having vanished after the fights had been disbanded.

Nami was hyperventilating beside him, Sanji realized. He stifled his panic long enough to help her, turning her towards him with his hands upon her shoulders.

“Take deep, slow breaths Nami, he’ll be okay- please, you need to calm down.”

He didn’t know if what he was saying was true, but from what he could tell Zoro’s injuries hadn’t looked life threatening. There was a lot of blood, sure, but in the end they hadn’t had to drag him away on a stretcher. Obviously he needed medical attention, but he’d been able to get off the ice without too much help.

Nami’s eyes were glassy and the frenzied expression she wore seemed cemented on her face. He was afraid she would need medical attention too when she snapped out of the panic she’d almost been consumed by. Roughly pulling herself out of his grip, Nami shoved past him and began to hurriedly make her way out of the seating area.

Momentarily startled by her reaction, Sanji spared a quick glance to where Robin sat and saw that she was sitting down now with her hand over her mouth. Like Nami, she seemed to be in a state of shock. She sat motionless as the people around her moved around one another; a still figure in a throng of movement. He had questions he needed to ask her in regards to, well, everything, and now would have been the perfect time to catch her alone. Instead, he found himself taking off after Nami, chasing her as she made her way out of their row and back into the commercial part of the arena.

He had no idea where she was running to and had no intention of stopping her unless it seemed as though she were about to hurt herself. They swerved and brushed past plenty of other bodies as she led them along, and many of the other people Sanji saw looked understandably stupefied about what had happened.

A lot of people had left the stands, unable to stand looking at the blood Zoro had left behind. Following Nami was made all the harder because of it; no one seemed to understand the urgency they were in as they dumbly stood in their way, talking amongst themselves. Despite her frayed emotions, Nami still managed to smoothly maneuver through the horde. She ducked, skirted, and shoved past a lot of people that Sanji found himself mumbling apologies to as he followed her route. It was rough going for a while until she led them into an unpopulated area which Sanji realized must have led to the locker rooms. He caught up with her when she stopped to breath, taking in huge, deep gulps of air, hunched forward with her hands on her knees.

“Are you alright?” he managed to ask in-between taking in large breaths of his own.

She shook her head first, but then nodded as she righted herself. Her eyes were wet with tears as she looked up at him, and Sanji swore he could feel his heart breaking, her grief was so strong. He wanted nothing more than to hold her in his arms at that moment to ease her pain, but instead they kept going, rushing onwards to where they knew Zoro was being held.

They made it to the locker rooms out of breath and looking quite haggard. Each of them had taken off their warm coats and felt burdened by having to carry them in their arms when they arrived. They attempted to regain some composure when they noticed that a large, squeamish looking man was standing outside the entrance. From inside, they could hear voices speaking urgently around a lot of commotion and they could both hear Zoro’s wail of pain.

Nami immediately tried to enter the room, but to their dismay the large man barred her way.

“You’re not supposed to be back here,” he said, looking first at Nami and then to Sanji with confusion. “No one’s allowed in unless you’re part of the team or management.”

Instead of arguing with him, Nami tried to dash past him again. She was thwarted immediately as he lunged into her way, making her groan out of frustration and desperation.

“Please! I have to get in there!” Her eyes were brimming with fresh tears that leaked out across her flushed cheeks. She turned them up to the anonymous man, who hesitated, unsure of what he was meant to do in this situation. “I need to see him, I-”

“C’mon, man, let her in,” Sanji intervened, sensing the guard’s weakness. “She’s his girl; can’t you see she’s worried about him?!”

The man had seemed uncertain, but he took a secondary glance at how upset Nami was and relented, stepping aside.

“If anyone asks, you snuck in,” he said as she quickly ran by.

“I’ll text you or- or call you!” she called back to Sanji, disappearing without thanks and before he even had a chance to reply.

A sick fantasy briefly crossed his mind where he wished she would care for him as deeply as she evidently felt for Zoro. He wanted her to weep for him as he was grievously wounded, but he banished it instantly, shaking it from his head when he remembered he had somewhere else to be.

“Thanks, man,” he mumbled to the guy by the door before he turned away and hastily made his way back to the main area.

He didn’t know where Robin would be if she were still hanging around. Gut instinct told him that she probably wasn’t still in her seat, and he slowed his stride to think about where she would likely be.

His first thought was that she’d probably made it into the locker room before them somehow. There was no way she could have beaten them there, though; they’d ran the whole way and she’d still been in her seat when they’d left.

There were less people now lingering in the common area than there had been when they’d run through it earlier. It was easier to navigate between people as he walked aimlessly, trying to make progress toward an unknown destination.

As he passed by the exit that lead out into the parking lot, he saw her. She was rushing out into the night, her dark hair illuminated by the streetlights that lined the sidewalk. Immediately he bolted after her, pushing himself roughly through the exit doors.

He was immediately assaulted by the cold; if he’d thought it was cold earlier when he was still at his apartment, it was nothing compared to this. The temperature had dropped even further and the air outside smelled like it was about to snow. He hurriedly put his coat back on, struggling to chase after Robin as he jammed his arms into the sleeves.

“Hey! Wait up!” he called as he closed the gap a bit. She glanced quickly over her shoulder at him before hurrying onward, ignoring him outright.

Frustrated, but with his coat on proper, he did finally catch up to her just as she reached her car. He heard it automatically unlock as she let herself inside, wasting no time in starting the car in an attempt to leave without sharing words.

“Please, wait! I just want to talk!”

Out of impulse, spurred on by a moment of adrenaline, he pulled open the passenger door to her car and attempted to get in. There was a sensation of instant regret that flooded him as he froze, staring into the barrel of her pistol as she whipped it out of her bag and pointed it directly at him.

There was a tense moment where Sanji honestly thought she was going to shoot him. Her eyes were sharp and cruel, and did not waver as he slowly retreated. In the back of his mind, his earlier thought of ‘Robin is a good person’ echoed around on repeat in an attempt to convince himself that he was safe.

“I just want to talk,” he said, speaking calmly despite the situation. “That’s all.”

She made no motion to turn her gun away. They remained still, staring one another dead in the eye for a time before Robin finally relented, sighing and lowering her arm. Sanji shivered from what he told himself was the cold as she allowed him to sit in the car with her.

As he softly closed the door behind him, he sat there staring out of the windshield and realized that he’d never felt his heart beat as fast as it was currently. He couldn’t quite collect his thoughts as a result; everything he’d wanted to ask and say danced around just outside of his cognitive ability to process them. All he could think about was how he’d almost (probably) died. The sound of his heart pumping blood rapidly throughout his body made it hard to concentrate on anything.

Robin’s voice, when she finally did speak, was quiet, low, and somber. It calmed his thoughts and racing heart, giving him something to focus on as it really was quite soothing.

“I’m sorry, but your friend is likely going to lose his eye.”

Blinking out of his stupor, Sanji replied, saying, “His eye? How do you know that?”

The gun was still in Robin’s hand, and she looked down at it as she placed it in her lap. He wanted to press her for an answer, but he felt his phone buzz in his coat pocket and took it out to see that he’d received several texts from Nami.

‘It’s his eye’

‘It looks really bad’

‘They had to call an ambulance’

He set his phone aside without replying and turned to look at Robin.

“How did you know it was his eye?”

She sighed deeply and closed her eyes for a moment, preparing herself for what she had to say.

“The Whiskey Peak Cacti are owned by Crocodile,” she began, and Sanji felt his heart drop. It all made sense now. Even if she stopped talking there, he’d have been able to fill in the blanks himself. “He paid them off to hurt your friend. I tried to stop it; I offered to pay double what he had, but he’d threatened their families. That was all I could do.”

“All you could do?” he asked, suddenly angrily. “You knew this whole time that they were going to try to hurt him, and you didn’t tell him?! You didn’t warn him?! You just sat there and let it happen!”

He didn’t know where his rage came from when just a moment ago he’d been so fearful he could hardly speak. There was plenty more she could’ve done in his mind. If she couldn’t keep the team from doing what Crocodile was forcing them to, then she could’ve gone to Zoro directly and told him not to play. She could’ve told the authorities, or anyone; she could’ve done so much more!

“You think he would have believed me?” Robin snapped back, turning her sharp eyes on him in a cutting gaze that stopped his furious tirade in its tracks. “Crocodile has influence over more things than you could possibly know. I don’t care if you don’t believe me, but I did all I could do and don’t you dare try telling me otherwise.

“And do you honestly think Crocodile would have been satisfied with that? With knowing he’d been cheated out of his revenge? You have no idea what he’s capable of, and he’s capable of doing so much more when he feels he’s been cheated.”

The car had begun to warm up as they stared disapprovingly at one another. The ambulance that Nami mentioned in text finally pulled into the parking lot, lights blaring and siren screaming in a high pitched warble. Sanji sighed and broke eye contact with her, because when it came down to it, she was right. There was no way Zoro would have believed her or heeded her warning. If she’d approached him and told him not to play, he probably would have thought that that was her way of trying to intimidate him into not playing at all. He was way too stubborn for his own good.

And when it came right down to it, Sanji realized he did know nothing at all. He knew nothing about Zoro, or Robin, or anything about anyone he’d become mixed up with over the past week except for Nami. He was an outsider who didn’t know his place.

His phone buzzed again, and he saw that it was another text from Nami.

‘Ambulance is here I’m going to ride with him to the hospital’

‘okay let me know how he is,’ he replied, and then tucked his phone away back into his pocket.

“I’m sorry,” he said to Robin, heaving a deep sigh of his own. “You’re right; I have no idea what I’m talking about.”

When he looked back at her, her face had softened. She nodded, accepting his apology.

“I didn’t want this to happen, but he thought that it was the bodyguard who ‘blinded’ him by editing you out of the security footage he’d captured somehow,” she admitted morosely. “I couldn’t tell him I had done it; I have too much on the line to lose at the moment. ‘An eye for an eye’, he said.”

“All this,” Sanji said, speaking quietly and looking over towards where the ambulance had parked. “All this because of me?”

He felt sick. Everything that had happened that night was finally catching up with him. His feelings ranged from sadness to anger to guilt before finally settling on remorse when Robin said, definitively, “Yes. All this because of you.”

He felt like he wanted to cry, but didn’t. It was all coming back around to him. All his meddling around in Zoro’s life had finally taken its toll. His actions had consequences, and they were severe.

“But I’m going to make things right.”

Looking up and around to Robin, who sat staring with a glare out the windshield dead ahead of them, he saw that her face no longer looked as soft as it had. It was long and drawn now, burdened with the weight of responsibility. She’d spoken with such conviction in her voice that he didn’t doubt for a second her ability to accomplish anything that she set out to do.

“I’m going to make things right,” she repeated, and met his gaze. Her frighteningly blue eyes were clear, and bore deeply into his own. “This will not stand. It will take time, but I will make things right.”

“I believe you,” Sanji whispered, unable to speak any louder than that.

Robin nodded in understanding and looked away again, placing her hands on the wheel. Across the lot, back at the arena, the ambulance’s sirens came back on as it prepared to leave, having loaded Zoro inside. He felt a little better with knowing that he was finally being given medical care, but Sanji’s emotions still refused to stabilize.

It was all too much, far too soon.

“Do you need a ride home?” Robin kindly asked him then, and he found himself shaking his head no in response. “Then I hope that the rest of your night will be a good one.”

‘How can it be? Knowing what I do now?’ he thought but did not say as he opened the car door and got out of its warmth. He felt numb and immune to the cold as he shut it behind him and stepped away so Robin could leave.

Standing alone in the lot, he watched as she left and then made his way back inside the arena when he realized he had nowhere else to go. Nami had been his ride, and now she was with Zoro. It came as a surprise to him to see that the hockey game had resumed, with Zoro’s team playing on without him. Though, he supposed, as long as they could clean the blood off the ice there was no reason not to finish the game.

He couldn’t bring himself to return to his seat, and instead spent the rest of the game loitering around the outer ring of the small arena, buying and drinking cheap beer to dull his aching brain until Nami contacted him again.

It was a phone call this time, he saw, as he took out his buzzing phone from his pocket. He answered it, knowing his voice sounded listless and wished he could offer her something that sounded more sincere than that.

“How is he?”

Over the line, he could hear her sniffling and imagined how she must’ve looked in that moment and couldn’t. His mind simply wouldn’t cooperate with him.

“He’s in surgery,” she said, hiccupping around a sob. “Th-they’re probably going to have to remove his eye- they said it was beyond saving, and oh, Sanji! It was so bad!”

She began crying in earnest, and he wished he could be there to comfort her in person. Over the phone he couldn’t do much of anything except let her cry.

“I’m sorry, I- I’m going to take a cab back to the arena,” she managed to say once she’d regained some composure. “I’ll be back soon.”

“Take your sweet time, my darling,” he replied.

And then he was stuck waiting. He could hear the game continuing on even though he wasn’t watching it in person until it finally ended about 45 minutes later. The announcer had lost some of his momentum, and the fans that came out of the seating area looked dejected and ugly as Sanji heard that the Bison had lost the game.

That didn’t surprise him, given all that had happened that night. It wasn’t their fault; the game had been doomed from the start. As he sat nursing his third beer, part of him wished he’d been smart enough to tell Nami about Robin earlier. He knew Zoro wouldn’t have listened to Robin, but maybe he wasn’t so bull-headed that he would have listened to them if they’d told him it was a bad idea for him to take the ice with his team.

Then again, Robin was probably right; if Crocodile’s revenge attempt had been foiled, would he not have just retaliated harder? Bitterly, Sanji thought that Zoro had probably gotten lucky with just losing an eye. There were a lot of other, less expendable body parts Crocodile could have targeted.

Nami texted him to tell her she’d arrived. He downed the rest of his drink in a swift, greedy gulp and stepped outside, walking to where she’d parked her truck earlier that night. She was already inside it, sitting behind the wheel as the engine rattled on and struggled to warm the cab. He opened the door and came in to sit beside her and immediately pulled her into a strong hug as she fell into him. They sat there for a few minutes while she wept again in his arms. Her hair was wet and mussed and Sanji bet she probably had one hell of a headache.

“He’ll be okay,” he whispered, holding her tight until she pulled away and nodded, wiping her eyes dry.

“I know,” was all she said.

The long drive home was spent in complete silence. Neither one of them could find the words to say. The tragedy was still fresh on their minds as they rode along, and they were, each of them, stricken mute by the memory of it.

Sanji hadn’t even realized they’d made it back to his apartment complex until Nami cut the engine. He’d been zoned out for the whole duration of the drive, and had no idea how Nami had been able to concentrate for that long when she’d been so affected by all that had happened.

“Are you going to be okay?” he asked her softly as she began to step out of the cab.

He followed after her, confused as to why she was getting out when she didn’t live there. Another sick fantasy crossed his mind that involved her begging and pleading with him to let her stay the night with him, leading to him comforting her with his sex. Cursing himself for being so perverted in a time of crisis, he cast it from his mind as he joined her on the curb.

“I think so,” she replied, oblivious to his fantasies. As she looked up at him, probably thinking about how he was such a kind gentleman to be worried about her his heart skipped a beat. He still half-hoped his fantasy was going to come true. “Um. I’m going to be staying at Zoro’s apartment for a while, to take care of Chopper, so you’ll probably be seeing me around. Just wanted to let you know so you wouldn’t worry about him.”

“O-oh, of course.” Sanji was beyond disgusted with himself; how could he have possibly thought that way about her? “If you need any help with anything, this is me.”

He led them to his apartment door and stalled there, digging his keys out of his pocket to unlock it, unsure if he should invite her in.

“Thank you,” she said, and smiled weakly up at him before grabbing him in a surprise hug.

He refused to think anything lecherous as he returned the hug and simply tried to enjoy it for what it was. She broke away sniffling and then began to mount the stairs up to Zoro’s apartment.

“See you around, Sanji,” she called down to him, her voice regaining some of its usual charm despite being as hoarse as it was.

“Keep me updated,” he said, finally stepping into his own apartment.

“I will.”

Shutting the door, he leaned back against it and allowed himself to sink down to the floor.

“I made some friends.”

“That’s good. I’ve been telling you to do that for years.”

The conversation he’d had with Zeff a few days prior replayed itself in his mind. As he held his head in his hands, he wondered if the people he now considered his friends would still want to be involved with him if they knew-

If they knew that everything that had happened was all his fault.

“All this because of me?”

“Yes. All this because of you.”

#zosan fanfic #zosan fanfiction #zosan #zoro/sanji #one piece fanfiction #one piece #punk au #modern day au #slow burn #mixed up

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goarticletec-blog · 6 years ago

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Last-place Penguins getting beat at their own game

New Post has been published on https://www.articletec.com/last-place-penguins-getting-beat-at-their-own-game/

Last-place Penguins getting beat at their own game

Mike Sullivan’s regular film sessions with the Pittsburgh Penguins don’t lack for clues on why one of the NHL’s marquee franchises is in the midst of its bumpiest stretch in more than a decade.

The defence can morph into a disjointed mess under sustained pressure, particularly right in front of the net. The crisp breakouts that used to trigger odd-man rushes featuring some of the league’s most skilled players moving at warp speed have largely vanished and been replaced by something significantly sloppier.

Oh, and the NHL at large has caught up to the frenetic tempo Sullivan introduced when he took over nearly three years ago, a hiring that — combined with a roster makeover authored by general manager Jim Rutherford — helped power the Penguins to consecutive Stanley Cups. In that way, Pittsburgh’s current struggles are a byproduct of its not-so-distant glory.

“For the most part it’s a copycat league and teams tend to try to emulate the teams that have success,” Sullivan said Tuesday. “When you look at our team over the last handful of seasons, we’ve had pretty good success with a certain style of play.”

Catching up to speed

A style Sullivan has no plans to abandon even with Pittsburgh mired in a 1-7-2 funk that has dropped his club into a tie for the fewest points in the wide-open Eastern Conference a quarter of the way through the season.

“You look at the core of our players, [Sidney] Crosby, [Evgeni] Malkin, [Phil] Kessel, [Kris] Letang, all those guys can skate,” Sullivan said. “They can still skate.”

The thing now is, so can everyone else.

The proof came to life over the last 30 minutes against Buffalo on Monday night, when the Sabres reeled off the final four goals, including Jake Eichel’s game-winner 45 seconds into overtime at the end of a sequence that began with a Malkin giveaway in the offensive zone.

It was the kind of miscue Pittsburgh used to pounce on with ruthless efficiency. Now it’s the Penguins who are making the crucial mistakes, ones that are ending up in the back of their own net with alarming regularity.

“I think we’ve been doing some really good things the last handful of games but we’ve been shooting ourselves in the foot a little bit with a few plays,” forward Bryan Rust said. “We’ve got to be a little bit more mindful of that and just dig down a little bit deeper and the bounces will eventually go our way.”

Lack of ‘puck luck’

There is a fair amount of “puck luck” that’s abandoned Pittsburgh at the moment. The Penguins were up two goals late in the second period against Buffalo when Pittsburgh defenceman Jack Johnson locked up Sabres forward Conor Sheary in front of the net. No matter. Casey Nelson’s shot from the point deflected off Johnson’s skate and by goaltender Casey DeSmith.

Watching from afar while sitting out a third straight game nursing an upper body injury, Crosby could only scratch his head.

“I think the thing for us that’s probably been a little more difficult is, it’s not necessarily the same thing,” said the two-time MVP, who hopes to play on Wednesday when Pittsburgh hosts Dallas. “We’ve found different ways to lose games and you know, we’ve probably corrected one thing and something else has been a factor in another game we lost.”

One thread, however, has been a constant: defence. The Penguins — particularly early in the season during the Crosby era — have occasionally been slow to tighten things up because they are so talented offensively that the finer points of playing responsibly in their own end can be lost.

In past years, Pittsburgh has been able to outscore opponents even on nights it didn’t particularly play well. That’s not happening at the moment. The loss to Buffalo marked the eighth time in 19 games the Penguins have allowed at least five goals, something they did 13 times all of last season.

Defence can improve

While Sullivan is quick to point to the number of quality chances Pittsburgh created against Buffalo, he’s well aware his team was far too generous in front of DeSmith. Pittsburgh dominated the first period but only had a 1-1 tie to show for it after forward Dominik Simon lost his footing while attempting to help clear a puck. Buffalo kept it in the zone and a cross-ice pass led to a one-timer that Tage Thompson buried to even the game.

“We’ve got to do a better job defending and making sure we stay on the right side of the puck and the right side of people in the critical areas of the rink,” Sullivan said. “That’s an area we can all improve as a team.”

Pittsburgh hasn’t missed the playoffs since Crosby’s rookie year in 2005-06 and Crosby stressed it is far too early to panic.

“It’s tight but we just have to make sure we eliminate our mistakes and give ourselves the best chance and I thought for the most part [against Buffalo] we were pretty in control of that game,” Crosby said. “I think if we keep trending that way, we’ll learn from that one and get a lot more wins.”

Three quarters of the season remains. Though the Penguins have been “meh” at best, the rest Metropolitan Division hasn’t exactly been lights out. Only eight points separate the Penguins from first-place Columbus. One good consistent stretch of hockey and things can change very quickly.

“You can’t control the ones you’ve let slip away,” Crosby said. “Ten games from now, you don’t know where you’re going to be.”

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yahoo-puck-daddy-blog · 7 years ago

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What We Learned: Leafs have chance to seize future, if they want it

The Leafs are in a good position for the playoffs, but it could arguably be better. (Photo by Mark Blinch/NHLI via Getty Images)

A lot was made this week over how badly the Maple Leafs throttled the Islanders and Rangers. They won by a combined score of 9-0 and outshot their opponents by 29 in just two games.

The reason why seemed obvious to a lot of observers: Mike Babcock had his toys taken away from him. It’s no secret that despite probably being the best coach in hockey with a lot of great ideas for how to succeed in the modern NHL, he also has a total inability to get over his old-school commitment to the need for defense-first hockey.

A lot of people thought the reason the Leafs won so convincingly in those two games — relatively low quality of the opponents notwithstanding — is that Roman Polak couldn’t play and Matt Martin was at long last scratched. Even Leo Komarov played fewer than 15 minutes after having cleared 17 on multiple occasions (and once, 24!) less than a month ago.

So the Leafs suddenly looked like last year’s Leafs, fast and getting through the neutral zone as if the opponent hadn’t been there at all. Nine goals for and none against almost seemed like a light sentence for the Rangers and Islanders, so devastating was Toronto in all three phases of the game. The reason why is clear: Babcock let go of the reins. There was no longer some sort of edict to play things safe, and as we’ve seen plenty of times in recent years, when you let your horses run wild and free, beautiful things can happen.

Babcock mostly stuck with the “ideal” lineup on Saturday night against Boston. Ron Hainsey was back from an illness but otherwise all of Babcock’s “guys” remained little seen. Komarov only played 14:01. No Roman Polak (still sick). No Matt Martin (coach’s decision). That Justin Holl — who is stepping up his game in the AHL from the Marlies blue line — got sent down is a consequence of the Leafs having perhaps too many good, young puck movers combined with the fact that they had to demote someone, and it sure as hell wasn’t gonna be Travis Dermott.

I was talking to a college coach earlier this year and asked him what his ideal blue line looked like. He said something to the effect of “give me six guys who are 6-foot-1 and can skate, every time.” The Leafs have a chance to go that route, and they should because it’s the future of the sport. Stay-at-home guys are a dying breed, and seemingly the only people who don’t know it are NHL coaches and GMs.

But even without this season’s traditional anchors in the lineup, Toronto ran into a buzzsaw on Saturday. The Bruins very clearly are what they appear to be at this point in the season; Bruce Cassidy has them running at a level unthinkable prior to the season. The ability to deploy players Patrice Bergeron and David Pastrnak (even with arguable team MVP Brad Marchand still suspended) against any high-end forward group is a luxury few teams have had in the history of hockey. That Auston Matthews and Co. got humiliated by their betters in that head-to-head matchup wasn’t inevitable, but it was certainly unsurprising.

This game presented a number of serious problems for the Leafs and, especially, their coach. First, the loss put Toronto in deep trouble when it comes to keeping pace with Boston for home ice in the divisional playoff round; they’re five points back and that molten Bruins team is sitting on four games in hand. The Leafs are in no danger of missing the playoffs or anything — they’re 15 points up on the Panthers in the Atlantic — but not having home ice against this Bruins team seems like a death sentence. And hell, the Bruins might be playing so well that they end up overtaking Tampa for first, meaning it would be a Bolts/Leafs first-round matchup, and that’s something Toronto absolutely doesn’t want either.

You can argue, with efficacy, that the Leafs would probably be doing a lot better, standings-wise, if they were in the Metro or Pacific. But old-timey rivalries and geography being what they are, this is the way the league is aligned and Toronto has the misfortune of being in a division with two of the four best teams (if we’re being conservative) in the league.

Another serious problem is that, well, Roman Polak isn’t going to be sick forever. And when he does come back to full health, Babcock can either scratch him or not-scratch him. The former would be a good idea since he is, y’know, bad at hockey and cannot play at the kind of pace the Maple Leafs need to be successful.

Babcock could see the Bruins steamrolling effort on Saturday as an excuse to say that an all-skill lineup doesn’t work against truly elite teams, and you need a steady defensive hand etc. etc. etc. Using that loss as an excuse to get back to featuring more Komarov, Polak, and Martin would be a very bad idea. But given how many chances he gave Martin before finally scratching him, and how Polak can seemingly do no wrong, one wonders how things proceed here.

Again, the Leafs are more likely than not to get shredded in the first round of the playoffs regardless of how they proceed this season, and how optimal their lineup is for any given game. That is, unfortunately for them, probably going to be the case for the next few years because of how Tampa and Boston have positioned themselves.

Which brings them to their third big problem: We don’t know how management will react to any of this. The good news is that a lot of their non-ideal guys are UFAs after this season. Polak, Komarov, Dominic Moore, and Tyler Bozak (the latter two are both fine, I guess) are all up for new deals. The Leafs have the option of not bringing back any of them, and should probably take that option. Especially because they still have to re-sign Willie Nylander (this summer), Mitch Marner, and Auston Matthews (both next summer) among other RFAs. They’ll have plenty of money to spend, but how they spend it will dictate their ability to meaningfully compete for a Cup.

All of this goes without saying that you probably don’t want to draw too many conclusions from two, three, four, five games. But if we saw what the Leafs did last year with a free and easy approach to the sport, then we can understand clearly what Babcock’s attempts to keep things more conservative and traditional so far this year have mostly returned. The Leafs are in a good position for the playoffs, but it could arguably be better. That it’s not really isn’t their fault, fully, but this should be about maximizing potential while a good young core approaches its prime en masse.

That anyone should have to tell them this, or show them only when multiple old, slow, ineffective guys are physically incapable of playing is an organizational failing.

What We Learned

Anaheim Ducks: The thing about that third-place spot in the Pacific is someone has to take it even if it seems like no one wants to.

Arizona Coyotes: The Coyotes getting “embarrassed“ seems about right at this point.

Boston Bruins: Lots of college guys on the Bruins. No wonder they’re having so much success.

Buffalo Sabres: Yeah you can totally see Eichel being one of those “TOM BRADY GOAT THE PATS AHHHH” guys.

Calgary Flames: It’s almost impossible to believe it took a game against Chicago for this Flames team to snap a six-game losing streak but here we are. They should be so much better than this. It’s perplexing.

Carolina Hurricanes: I don’t think we’re ever gonna figure out what Jeff Skinner’s deal is offensively.

Chicago Blackhawks: This team just really isn’t that good.

Colorado Avalanche: Remember when this team won 10 in a row and got back into the thick of the Central’s playoff race? Yeah they’ve lost four of the last five, and their only win was in overtime.

Columbus Blue Jackets: Speaking of which, Columbus is reeling. Two regulation wins since Dec. 21. That seems impossible.

Dallas Stars: This, well, it was ugly.

Detroit Red Wings: I guess this is like in baseball where a manager gets himself thrown out arguing balls and strikes over a clear backwards-K just to fire up the boys. But Jeff Blashill doing it in a loss to the Panthers is seriously the who-cares-est thing in the world. The Red Wings are a 61-101 baseball team. Take it easy.

Edmonton Oilers: The Oilers love Brandon Davidson, whom they traded for David Desharnais less than a year ago.

Florida Panthers: It’s a three-game winning streak for the Panthers. All they need to do now is win like 14 more in a row and I think they have a good shot at the playoffs.

Los Angeles Kings: It’s been a year of weird shutout streaks. Darcy Kuemper hasn’t allowed a goal in the last 170:30. I dunno.

Minnesota Wild: It’s crazy how not-healthy the Wild have been this year.

Montreal Canadiens: I love that we still don’t know what Marc Bergevin is gonna do at the deadline. That’s incredible. This team is about two games away from being eliminated.

Nashville Predators: Sometimes you see Bob McKenzie say the Predators may be looking to add a significant piece at the deadline and you go, “Ah that’s smart.” And then you watch them crumple an okay Rangers team like it’s the easiest thing in the world and you go, “Ah that’s scary.”

New Jersey Devils: The Devils have won three in a row after dressing 11 forwards and seven defensemen for all of them. This, too, might be the future of the NHL. Few are paying attention to it yet.

New York Islanders: I guess “pays off” is one way to put it since they won, but they also gave up 49 shots on goal, so…

New York Rangers: Two Rangers got head-shotted against the Preds but only one resulted in a call with DOPS. No one knows what’s a suspension-worthy hit and no one knows what goaltender interference is. Great league.

Ottawa Senators: Ah, snatching victory from the jaws of…. victory?

Philadelphia Flyers: Okay, alright. You try figuring this team out, because I’m all set. Let the chips fall where they may, baby!!!

Pittsburgh Penguins: Zach Aston-Reese! I love him!

San Jose Sharks: Pete DeBoer says the power play has been a big key for success for San Jose since the middle of November. How about this one, Pete: San Jose’s power play has been a big key for its success for about a decade.

St. Louis Blues: Okay, I’ll say it: Carter Hutton for Hart. Harter… Hartton??

Tampa Bay Lightning: Columns like this should be illegal. Morally wrong.

Toronto Maple Leafs: The loss on Saturday was the first time Freddie Andersen ever lost to Boston. That’s wild.

Vancouver Canucks: Just trade the Sedins!

Vegas Golden Knights: Barry Trotz being extremely bitter about how good the Vegas roster is? That’s very funny.

Washington Capitals: Sometimes in a loss there’s not a lot to discuss. You just get run out of the building. It happens.

Winnipeg Jets: Connor Hellebuyck should be quietly sliding into a lot of Vezina conversations at this point.

Play of the Weekend

This kid, man.

Gold Star Award

Sean Monahan ran Chicago out of the building on Saturday: the OT game-winner, sure, but also 11 shot attempts, eight of which were on net, a plus-6 CF despite playing against the Kane line. Pretty good.

Minus of the Weekend

Ryan Miller gave up three goals on seven shots in 10:13 to Montreal!!!!

Perfect HFBoards Trade Proposal of the Week

User “InDucheWeTrust” is playing 9-dimensional chess.

1 for 1

Karlsson for Tavares

The first reply is perfect.

Signoff

Oh, no. I said “steamed hams.” That’s what I call hamburgers.

Ryan Lambert is a Puck Daddy columnist. His email is here and his Twitter is here.

(All stats via Corsica unless otherwise noted.)

#_revsp:21d636bb-8aa8-4731-9147-93a932d2b27a #_uuid:6cafd6a0-b10b-355a-b0e1-d22bbea91a38 #_lmsid:a077000000CFoGyAAL #_author:Ryan Lambert

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yahoo-puck-daddy-blog · 7 years ago

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What We Learned: When can we start the Auston Matthews MVP conversation?

Auston Matthews has been playing at an MVP level this season. (Mark Blinch/Getty)

Not to draw too many conclusions from the first week and a half of the season, but you know that step everyone expected Auston Matthews to take?

Looks like he took it.

Five games into the season, he has exactly that many goals and three assists. This after the season he walked away with the Calder and finished 11th in MVP voting as a 19-year-old. And as far as that Hart voting goes, he probably has a right to feel a little hard done by.

This is a kid who led the league in individual expected goals per hour a year ago, finished fifth in primary points per 60 at 5-on-5 despite drawing the best opponents other teams had to offer, attempted the 10th-most shots per 60 in the league last season, scored 40 goals, got the Leafs into the playoffs and generally pounded on the competition almost every time he was on the ice. As a rookie teenager playing his first season of high-level North American hockey.

And it looks like he took a step.

It’s not just the show-stopping goals (he already has a nice highlight reel going this season) and it’s not just the fact the Leafs are both scoring and preventing goals at unbelievable clips. It’s that, once again, Matthews is at the center of one of the most dominant lines in the league, and it’s even more dominant than it was last season.

Last season the Hyman-Matthews-Nylander line had an expected-goals share of more than 55 percent at full strength, putting them seventh in the league behind such groups as Calgary’s 3M line, that dominant Cogliano-Kesler-Silfverberg trio, John Tavares and Evgeny Kuznetsov’s lines, and the Marchand-Bergeron-Pastrnak line. If you can be mentioned in the same breath as those groups, and you’re playing with Zach Hyman (who’s perfectly fine and got more crap than he probably deserved, but he’s certainly not on the level of a lot of these players), you’re doing things very, very right.

And they’re at it again this year, currently second in the league in xGF% among lines with at least 30 minutes together, and frankly it’s tough to see the Lehkonen-Plekanec-Hudon line keeping this up all year. Expected goals measures both shot volume and quality to distill things down to a single number, and the Matthews line is pushing 71 percent in this regard through five games. Again, really early, and there will be rough stretches for this team and this group as there is for everyone in the league regardless of how good they are. That’s what happens when you play 82.

So the number will undoubtedly come down, but by how much? Last year, when all these guys were rookies, that 55 percent or so xGF was already elite. And while you don’t expect them to clear 60 — only four lines have ever done that in more than 500 minutes together over a single season since the 2012 lockout, and two of them featured Patrice Bergeron and Brad Marchand — the fact is, whenever you’re pushing up against even 55, 56 percent, you’re pummeling the other team.

And here’s the scary part: The Matthews line was actually a little unlucky last year. Despite that huge number in xGF — which ranks 16th among all heavily used lines since 2012-13 — they actually got outscored by a goal at 5-on-5 last season. The reason why? They had a great save percentage behind them (.930) but only shot 5.8 percent themselves.

So here’s the question that naturally arises: Is there any way on earth their on-ice shooting percentage remains that low all year? The answer almost has to be a firm “no,” not only because it’s low for anyone in the league, but because it’s insanely low given that Matthews personally had a 14.3 percent accuracy rate in all situations last year. And remember, this is after Matthews scored more goals at 5-on-5 than anyone in the league last season.

The issue, then, is that Nylander and Hyman took a combined 272 shots at full strength last season and only scored 17 goals; crunch those numbers and you come up with a shooting percentage of 6.25. Say what you want about either of those guys, but no forward in the league has a talent level that low, period. (Though this does explain why Matthews only had 29 assists last season.)

So now flip the calendar to this year, and the Leafs are currently outscoring opponents 7-1 when the Matthews line is on the ice. Obviously the goals against is going to go up, and the goal-scoring will slow down a bit (Hyman is now shooting 20 percent), but Matthews looks a little more assertive this time around in shooting the puck himself, and you can see the skill level at which he’s playing on any highlights package of a Leafs game this year. He has a point in all five, and at least one goal in four. He’s omnipresent when he’s on the ice and just picking out corners in OT, which likely won’t last (at least not at that rate). But hey, it’s two extra points for the team and two extra goals for the kid.

There are lots of guys off to hot starts right now, of course. Alex Ovechkin already has nine damn goals. Three of the league’s top five scorers are defensemen. Things can get weird at this time of year.

But when you look at everything — aging curves, what Matthews did as a rookie, the fact that he has a great coach who’s going to put him in a position to succeed, continuity of linemates, the fact that he was a little unlucky last year, and so on — you have to come to the understanding that Matthews is as well-positioned as anyone to clear 100 points and get himself in the conversation for the Hart.

Okay, yes, Connor McDavid will have something to say about it, but if Matthews isn’t in the top-five at the end of the year, it would be a surprise.

Honestly, it’s not just about how good he looks or how much he’s scoring this year. It’s the fact that a player who was already this good was always likely to get better. And it looks like he might have gotten a whole hell of a lot better.

What We Learned

Anaheim Ducks: Don’t all look at once but what if … 65-year-old Francois Beauchemin has had an unsustainable start and actually is as bad now as he was in Colorado?

Arizona Coyotes: Not ideal for the Coyotes to still be winless at this point, but also: It’s the Coyotes.

Boston Bruins: Similar sentiment but reversed: Let’s not get all excited about crushing the Coyotes.

Buffalo Sabres: One thing a team like the Sabres definitely needed at this time of year, given how they’re playing, was a nice West Coast road swing. For sure.

Calgary Flames: Now this is a take.

Carolina Hurricanes: Y’know, Scott Darling is holding up his end of the bargain so far here, but this team has two goals in its last 125 minutes of hockey. They’re lucky to be 1-1-1.

Chicago Blackhawks: Congrats to these guys for actually scoring against Nashville at home. Big day.

Colorado Avalanche: Yes, this is the kind of result that feels right for this team.

Columbus Blue Jackets: Turns out this Panarin kid can play. Not just a product of playing with Patrick Kane. Weird!

Dallas Stars: The Stars only have four 5-on-5 goals this season. That’s fun.

Detroit Red Wings: This is absolutely the best team in the league this year. For sure. I hope I get to write updates forever about how sustainable Jimmy Howard’s .950 save percentage is.

Edmonton Oilers: Uh oh, folks. Uh oh.

Florida Panthers: If you came from the future and told me this is a team that loses narrowly a lot all season, I would believe you.

Los Angeles Kings: John Stevens is a genius. Gotta admit that!

Minnesota Wild: We’re less than two weeks into the season and already Bruce Boudreau is busting out the word “embarrassing” in pressers. What a year this will be.

Montreal Canadiens: And jeez, the Canadiens are already talking about “moral victories aren’t good enough.” Buddy, it’s Oct. 16. Take it easy for like a second.

Nashville Predators: This is a weird angle for a story but okay.

New Jersey Devils: That Will Butcher signing is working out great. First rookie ever to have eight assists in his first five games. He played college hockey, FYI.

New York Islanders: Hey as long as you get 40 saves every night…

New York Rangers: We’re talking about firing a coach or making a trade, on Oct. 16, about a team that’s very clearly trying to rebuild on the fly? Am I getting that right?

Ottawa Senators: Thomas Chabot might stick with the team but also he might not. Probably comes down to roster flexibility. Who knows!

Philadelphia Flyers: Hockey’s weird sometimes. What can I tell ya?

Pittsburgh Penguins: Here’s a big stat that shouldn’t be a surprise: Pittsburgh hasn’t lost to Florida in regulation in the last 10 games.

San Jose Sharks: Yes, this was always the concern for a one-line team, wasn’t it?

St. Louis Blues: The Blues lost their last two games after winning the first four, so of course they’re mad or something. I dunno.

Tampa Bay Lightning: To me, personally? This Kucherov kid can play.

Toronto Maple Leafs: Let’s just watch this one again:

Vancouver Canucks: People are shocked that a rebuilding team that charges a ton of money for tickets isn’t selling out. What goes on out there?

Vegas Golden Knights: Heyyyyyy, there ya go.

Washington Capitals: Yeah turns out this Niskanen guy is pretty important.

Winnipeg Jets: *stage whispering* Looks like Hellebuyck should have been the starter all along.

Play of the weekend

RIP Madison Bowey. Welcome to the bigs, bud.

Gold Star Award

They might get rid of the All-Star Game to do something in Europe instead. What a league.

Minus of the Weekend

The Golden Knights mascot? Not a fan!

Perfect HFBoards Trade Proposal of the Year

User “MR4” is all about the specificity.

TOR: JVR, Bozak, Carrick, 1st (top 14 protection) MIN: Dumba, contracts/dumps

Signoff

My name is Zweig.

—

Ryan Lambert is a Puck Daddy columnist. His email is here and his Twitter is here.

(All stats via Corsica unless otherwise noted.)

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yahoo-puck-daddy-blog · 8 years ago

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Frozen Four: Harvard ousted on last-minute goal, Minnesota-Duluth to final

In which we recap the day’s events in the NCAA tournament.

Minnesota-Duluth is the best team Harvard has played all year. The ECAC isn’t exactly a tough league, and the Crimson’s NCAA tournament opponents weren’t exactly the most skilled in the field.

So this was a big test.

Results-wise, you can say the Bulldogs were harsh administrators.

Alex Iafallo, the best Duluth player all season, scored with just 26.6 seconds left in a heavy game that had been deadlocked for more than 40 minutes. The Bulldogs won by a hair, 2-1, to advance to the national final on Saturday night.

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“We made a play at the end to win,” said UMD coach Scott Sandelin. “But certainly exciting for our team and our program to be playing on Saturday night. And looking forward to see who we play. But it’s kind of been our M.O. all year. Another tight game. Another one-goal hockey game. And just real exciting to be moving on.

It was exactly the kind of play Duluth had been pulling off all year.

“We kept it in there at the blue line,” Iafallo shrugged. “And that was pretty much the key to the goal. And Raskob made a good play. We do it in practice all the time. So simple things like that, getting the puck to the net. Just had to shovel it in.”

But the fact that Harvard played this well in a game totally unlike their typical style, and ended up losing by a single goal to the second-best team in the country, showed that any doubts about their quality had to be deposited in the nearest trash bin. Not that it mattered, at the end of the day. There are winners and losers in this sport.

Certainly, Duluth was in their comfort zone to a certain extent. The vast majority was played with the game tied (Harvard led for a whopping 3 minutes and 24 seconds); and the Bulldogs went to overtime on 12 occasions this season, once every three games or so, including in both games at the regionals. They also improved to 14-4 in one-goal games.

Meanwhile, Harvard has basically blown out every opponent for two and a half months.

“I think pretty much every bit of ice was hard to get out there,” said Harvard coach Ted Donato. “I give Minnesota-Duluth a lot of credit for that. I thought neither team really had a lot of zone time. I think both teams had some good chances. But certainly in the first half of the game, I don’t think we were able to get out of our zone as cleanly as we would have liked and establish some offensive zone play.”

These teams have contrasting styles, so it was interesting to see who would set the tone. Then there were three penalties in first eight minutes, the multiple big hits. Well, that looks a lot like physical hockey. This was, perhaps, not to Harvard’s liking, as they’re a team built on speed and skill moreso that Duluth, which is one of the bigger, more physical teams in the country. So to that extent you could easily argue the Bulldogs were dictating terms, but in doing so they played a dangerous game.

Give a team like Harvard, with its fourth-ranked power play (26.5 percent), and you are simply asking to concede. The Crimson have the personnel to generate good looks and convert them; guys like Adam Fox and Alex Kerfoot can move the puck around at top speeds. Tyler Moy and Ryan Donato shoot the puck with lethality in mind.

The good news, for the time being, was that Duluth’s lockdown defense didn’t give Harvard much space on those man advantages, and mostly kept them away from Hunter Miska (39 saves).

That’s not to say that, at 5-on-5, things weren’t going well for the Bulldogs. They set up their cycle on multiple occasions and got several good looks. Better looks, in fact, than what Harvard generated even with the power plays.

But then Kyle Osterberg — the smallest player on UMD’s titanous roster at just 5-foot-8 and 175 pounds — took a dumb boarding penalty away from the play and 185 feet from his own net, and hey look at that, Harvard went up through a low-angle Moy goal just 35 seconds later.

“You gotta guard a little bit because obviously their power play is very good, as you saw,” Sandelin said. “They’re going in at 26, 27 percent. And like any power play that’s good you don’t want to give them too many opportunities.”

Just before the end of the first period, though, Duluth’s top line evened the score. Joey Anderson snuck a shot through traffic right off a draw and just completely caught Merrick Madsen (36 saves) by surprise. It was the first defensive-zone draw the Crimson lost in the opening 18:36, and it cost them dearly.

“I just like how we were playing,” Sandelin said. “I think our intensity level was good. We had some real good time in the offensive zone. But yet we hadn’t scored. So anytime you get a goal later in a period, you know, it certainly gave us a boost.”

Shots were 14-13 Harvard in the first, but quality chances weren’t even close. It was all Bulldogs; Harvard played from the perimeter at 5-on-5. But again, you can’t take three penalties against anyone, let alone this team. So conditions seemed appropriate, all things considered.

That’s when Duluth took over. They drew a power play, and proceeded to badly outshoot the Crimson for pretty much the entire second period, and shots in the middle 20 ended up 13-10 in the Bulldogs’ favor, and it was only that close because of a late Crimson power play.

The hottest team in the nation suddenly had no answers whatsoever. Speedy Harvard were getting beat to 50-50 pucks left and right, and weren’t getting any traction in the neutral zone. Save for a two-shift flurry late in the period (including hitting a post) and that fourth Harvard power play, Miska could have gotten out a crossword and made some pretty good progress.

At the other end, Madsen continued his inhuman run of success, single-handedly keeping his team in the game.

“I thought we were good defensively 5-on-5,” Donato said. “But they had a few very good chances and I thought Merrick looked on. I think he gave the bench a lot of confidence and just know when you play a team like that, you know, they played so many close games and it was going to be a bounce either way.”

The going in the third period was a little slower, but things were beginning to tip in Harvard’s favor. Sean Malone appeared to score a goal at 5:41 of the third, but the puck clearly went in after the whistle. But more to the point, it was indicative of Harvard’s willingness — and surprising ability — to change its approach on the fly. They were getting to the net consistently for the first time all night, and putting together strong shifts, consecutively.

Then Duluth pushed back, briefly, and the game settled once again into more of a deadlock. Call it conservatism. Call it two evenly matched teams (Harvard’s irresistible force to UMD’s immovable object). Call it everyone getting a bit gun-shy for fear of being the guy who takes a penalty late in a tied national semifinal.

But that Duluth cycle, so strong all year, was what paid off in the end. They got the puck in deep, won board battles, knocked down a few clear attempts, and worked the puck to the weak side. Willie Raskob picked up a Joey Anderson pass in plenty of space, but wisely identified Iafallo streaking ahead Luke Esposito.

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Simple pass, simple tip, five-hole goal.

Harvard pushed back at the death, generating two golden chances with a 6-on-5, including an Esposito shot off the post with about four seconds left from prime scoring real estate: right between the hashmarks.

Duluth, somehow, silenced the loudest offense in the country and ground out yet another win.

“We play in a very difficult league,” Sandelin said. “So every weekend you go in thinking those are the types of games you’re going to be in. And very seldom are there blowouts. And it can change from one night to the next.”

Ryan Lambert is a Puck Daddy columnist. His email is here and his Twitter is here.