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Ottawa lost 4-2 and Shane had been at fault for one of the goals.
Not entirely. Partially . Which was worse for him than being entirely at fault, because here he couldn’t blame himself completely, he knew it was because of a series of small wrong decisions.
But now he was sitting in his stall and he was very, very inside his own head.
The room had mostly cleared. Wyatt was still there. A couple of rookies too.
Ilya sat down next to him.
Didn’t say anything.
Shane stared at the floor. “Don’t.”
“I didn’t do anything.”
“Yet. You’re about to tell me it wasn’t my fault.”
“It was a little your fault.” Ilya said.
Shane looked up.
“Third period,” Ilya said. “You left the back open.” He paused. “But it was because Bood needed backup. You were covering for it. Wrong call but not a stupid one.”
Shane thought about it. “That’s not actually comforting.”
“Wasn’t meant to be comforting. It was meant to be accurate.”
Shane exhaled. The tension in his shoulder - the one that always came with losses - was still there, but it shifted slightly. Categorized. That was better.
“I keep thinking about it.” Shane said. “What I could’ve done differently .”
“Yes.”
“I’m working on it.”
“I know.” Ilya leaned back against the stall. “You had eleven good decisions before that one. I counted.”
“You-” Shane looked at him. “You counted? But you were playing.”
“I can do both.” Ilya shrugged. “Eleven good decisions. One bad one. That’s a good ratio.”
“You counted for me,” Shane said.
“Don’t make it weird.”
“I’m not making it weird, I’m just -”
“Shane.”
“I’m just noting that you counted.” Because Ilya knew Shane needed numbers.
“Do you want to go home or do you want to talk about my counting?”
Shane stood up. “Home.”
“Good.” Ilya stood too. And then, in a mostly empty locker room with Wyatt Hayes definitely pretending not to listen twenty feet away,
Ilya put one hand on Shane’s face and looked directly in his eyes, he knew his were doing the heart thing.
“You did amazing today. Let’s go.”
Shane followed him out.
From across the room, Wyatt said nothing, he finished untaping his stick with the focused energy of a man who had seen nothing and would continue to see nothing for the rest of his goalies life. A curse he was happy to bear.