Last Save

In an attempt to quiet the amount of stacked expansion teams entering the NHL, the committee proposed a final expansion that historians would end up writing down as the last in the next twenty years - a truly new, completely entry-drafted team, and any non-entry-level players signed must have never played in the NHL before. For some, it sounds crazy and predictably unsuccessful.

For Joel Skinner, it's one last opportunity.

Drafted to this newfound team as one of two top goalies, he is bombarded with the stress of facing off against snipers, playmakers, and against goalies whom he'd only viewed of before as legends.

But none of the stress of playing on this team - where odds upon odds stack against it, no one can seem to agree with one another, the rest of the league thinks of them as a joke, and even simply having a similar name to an already-big-time hockey player - can compare to a deep secret that Joel keeps hidden away. Locked away and buried, because the last time he told someone, he lost everyone and everything.

And the last time someone revealed it while playing professionally, they were killed.

**ongoing
may start a bit slow

Photos used in cover by Chris Liverani and Arthur Edelman (Unsplash)