[2490 words, ready for grading]

note: Finally getting the end of S78 done after the last chapter ended up being longer than anticipated!

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It's never easy to go back to work after the holidays, but for Anastasia Söderström it was at least a return to a regular routine after a very emotionally intense Christmas. She'd gotten to meet her partner's family for the first time, she'd come out to her parents, and she'd traveled across the country to play one of her finest games on somewhat short rest. Now all she had to do was finish out her season in Detroit and then she'd be in her long-term home in Calgary where she could finally achieve some stability.

As the calendar rolled on and January turned into February, the Falcons were fighting for playoff position and trying to get all of their schemes and strategies right leading into the playoffs, and Ana would undoubtedly be a big part of that. A late skid to end the season dropped them to the fourth seed in a very stacked Southern Conference, where Detroit would be taking on their old rival St. Louis in the first round. Ana was familiar with some of their players, from her draft-class rival Alexa Johansen to both of their goalies, whom she had met as fellow Dragons goalie prospects. The Falcons had experienced some stumbles in the playoffs in the last few seasons, but the Swede was buoyed by knowing that she had people she loved and cared about rooting for her. 

The first round of the playoffs got off to a fairly straightforward start in Game 1, where Ana only had to face 20 shots as her teammates put up 44 against the Scarecrows to pull out a 4-2 win. Game 2 was a similar story but even more emphatic, where the Falcons outshot their hated rival 47-19 and cruised to a blowout 7-1 victory. As they say, though, you're never out of a series until you lose at home, and the Scarecrows showed their mettle going back to their home ice for Game 3. Ana had given up an early shot to fall behind 1-0 and St. Louis then doubled their lead late in the first period. Perhaps in previous years she might have crumbled from the stress, but she was older now, wiser now, and this time around she had strategies built up for putting these setbacks out of her memory. 

Coming out for the second period, the teams settled into a back-and-forth rhythm with no more scoring until Rock Solid broke the shutout in favour of Detroit. Unfortunately, the Scarecrows got that goal right back to restore their two-goal lead, but Jimbob Ghostkeeper pulled them back within one late in the second period and took them to the break with that margin. However, the third period was when things started to fall apart again. Brayden Point took a holding penalty 46 seconds into the third period and the Scarecrows were able to execute on a set faceoff play on the ensuing power-play faceoff. Ana made the first save, but the puck came back out to Jack Booth who shot the rebound past her and made it a 4-2 game for the Scarecrows. About five minutes after that, St. Louis got a two-on-one and Ana wasn't able to get across to stop the one-timer, putting the Falcons down by three goals with less than 15 minutes to play in the game.

Ana didn't remember much of what was said in the ensuing timeout, mostly just trying to focus on catching her breath and clearing her head. With Detroit down three goals, they would have to throw everything they had at the opposing net in order to have a chance of coming back, which meant that if there were any chances coming back the other way that she would need to be sharp to stop them. The buzzer went and she skated off towards her net, determined to do whatever it took to make sure nothing else got past her tonight.

The comeback got off to a tentative start with a little under eight minutes left in the game as Ana's future Calgary teammate Jeffrey Bjelland was left alone at the faceoff dot and slammed home a perfect pass that the Scarecrows goalie could only wave at. They were one goal closer to their objective of coming back, but the next few minutes ticked off the clock with no further scoring. Ana started to look towards the end of the bench in case an early goalie pull was coming, but with about four and a half minutes left Simon Science tipped in a shot to pull Detroit within one goal and just about silence the crowd. A couple minutes later, the Scarecrows' Louis Belanger took a penalty when their errant stick tripped up a Detroit player, sending the Falcons to a critical power play with three minutes left in the game. After some directing of traffic to get everyone set up in the proper places for the faceoff, the puck was won back and quickly passed to an open Bjelland, who wound up and blasted the puck as hard as he could. Tie game. Silence.

The Detroit Falcons had completely erased a three-goal deficit on the road within the span of five minutes, and with the Scarecrows already back on their heels they just kept pushing. With a minute and a half left in the game, the Scarecrows were trying to generate any kind of momentum before a potential overtime when an ill-advised shot ended up in the shinpads of Bjelland. With the advantage of momentum taking him up the ice, Bjelland was home free from centre ice and made no mistake on the breakaway, faking out Murray before dropping in a light backhand behind him to complete his hat trick and give the Falcons their first lead of the game. A minute and 48 seconds later with an insurance marker into the empty net, the game was over with a 7-5 Detroit victory in the most remarkable comeback Ana had ever played in.

After the emotional high of the thrilling comeback in Game 3 to take a 3-0 series lead, there was still one more game to play before Detroit could officially clinch their spot in the second round. The Falcons got off to another slow start in this game as Emile Dionne put the first goal past Ana five minutes into the game and Mason Chernezky added another at the game's halfway mark to give St. Louis a 2-0 lead. As had just been shown in the previous game, though, these leads could change in an instant and that was shown early in the third period when Theo Kane and Roquefort Cotswald both scored 90 seconds apart to bring it right back to a tie game. This deadlock didn't last long as the Scarecrows got the lead right back 45 seconds later, but Max Kielinen continued Detroit's propensity for clutch goals by chipping a rebound over Murray to bring the Falcons even once more at 3-3.

The mood in the Falcons dressing room as the players prepared for overtime was one of cautious optimism. They were playing with house money up 3-0 and had already shown an ability to stay resilient through anything, but they really didn't want to have to deal with the travel and mental load of preparing for another game, so they hoped to get it done right here. Ana hadn't been in too many high-stakes playoff overtimes in her young career so far, so she didn't talk to anyone for the whole intermission, trying to clear her mind of any mistakes she'd made in this game and series and just focus on blocking the next shot. It helped that her teammates were fully aware of what she needed in these situations, so they knew to leave her alone in these pressure moments and let her go through her routines. Ana hoped that when she got to Calgary her new teammates would be similarly understanding of her needs, since she didn't know of many other neurodivergent players in the SHL who might have influenced teammates through exposure.

The overtime got off to a tentative start, neither team wanting to make the mistake that would either send them home or send the series to a fifth game. Ana had to turn aside a relatively non-threatening chance, but of course the pressure of even routine saves was turned up to 11 when overtime became involved. She didn't have to wait long, however. Just two minutes into the extra frame, a beautiful chance popped up that Smitty ripped into the open net, giving Detroit their second straight comeback win and punching their ticket to the second round with a thrilling sweep. The Falcons would need to wait to see who their opponent for the second round would be, but for now they could go home, rest, and perfect their strategies for the rest of their playoff run.

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A few days passed and the Falcons soon learned that they would be playing the higher-seeded Colorado Raptors in their second-round series. Thanks to their own series sweep and the Raptors being taken to seven games by the Carolina Kraken, Ana had had some time to unwind at home and mentally reset for the upcoming series. Video chatting with Taylor, who was getting ready for her end-of-term finals starting in just a couple of weeks, helped provide a welcome distraction for both women and temporarily bridge the real-life distance between them.

Unlike the last couple games that the Falcons had played, they managed to get off to a fast start in Game 1, scoring just two minutes into the first period to jump out to an early 1-0 lead. Detroit was controlling play early and holding an edge in the shot count, and the chances that Ana had faced so far were easily turned aside. Halfway through the first period, Jeffrey Bjelland added another goal to give the Falcons a two-goal advantage that they took into the first intermission.

"This is a strong team, and they're going to come back hard in the second period, so we have to be ready for that," the coach said in the second period. He went over their own adjustments to try and prepare to counter what Colorado would try and do, while Ana thought about her own performance so far. The first game back between the pipes after an extended time off such as a playoff sweep had never been easy for her to handle as she couldn't easily get her mind back into the same state of focus it had been before, but so far she'd been able to accurately track the puck and read the play, two things that had always been her biggest strengths as a goalie.

Detroit's Bas O'Bigbers Jr. kept the momentum going just a couple minutes into the second period with a shot to make the score 3-0, but as predicted Colorado didn't stay down for long and they slowly chipped away at the lead over the next 25 minutes or so, eventually going up 4-3 on a goal from Kral King with about seven minutes left. Detroit, for their part, kept up the clutch scoring that they had shown during this playoff run and Simon Science scored through a screen with three and a half minutes left to tie the game. The score stayed that way through the rest of the third period and into overtime, where Detroit scored to steal a game on the road with a 5-4 victory.

Game 2 of the series was similarly dramatic. With Colorado up by two goals with five minutes left in the game, Brayden Point was the next Falcons player to come up clutch in starting the comeback with a one-timer, and Archibald Walker scored yet another tying goal to send Game 2 to overtime as well. This extra frame lasted much longer than the two games Detroit had just played, and while they largely kept the puck in Colorado's end this could sometimes be tough for Ana. Some goalies thrive when facing more shots since it helps them to stay engaged with the action, and Ana was one of these goalies. Thankfully, her teammates eventually came through and scored the winning goal for Detroit's third straight overtime victory and a 2-0 series lead.

The next three games didn't go as well as Colorado won two of them, but Game 6 at home was where Ana shone. When a goalie is "in the zone", it can really motivate their teammates knowing their goalie has their back, and tonight was one of those nights. Every shot that went her way was seemingly right in her direction to be blockable, her movement was clean and efficient, and she was tracking the puck as well as she could. The Falcons were energized by this and never looked back on the way to a 6-0 blowout in the series-clinching game. Ana's 30 saves resulted in her first-ever playoff shutout in the SMJHL and clinched the furthest she'd ever made it in the playoffs in her young professional career, finally eclipsing the disaster from her rookie year.

Unfortunately, the Cinderella story eventually hit midnight, as the Falcons ran into the Maine Timber in the Southern Conference final, who had finished with 23 more points than every other team in the league. Ana and her teammates played their best but just couldn't overcome the skill gap, losing in five games. When the final buzzer sounded on the season-ending 4-2 loss, Ana just stared blankly at the celebrating Timber players from the bench. Four seasons for the Falcons, two MVP trophies, the Rookie of the Year trophy, a Top Goalie trophy, and she had never even made the finals in that time. Calgary was a team on the rise and she'd hopefully have plenty of chances to reach that summit with them, but it stung to not make it there in the limited time she had in the SMJHL.

"How are you feeling? Talk to me," Taylor said during their video call later that night.

"I'll be okay," Ana replied softly. "I know you're finishing up your finals, and I don't want to put too much stress on you, it just sucks that I never got to go to the finals and have a chance to win a championship with Detroit. At least now I get to come see you soon?"

They didn't say much more after that due to the late hour and tiredness, but being able to comfort each other about their stresses felt good. It would be a little longer until Ana finished her own high school courses and could then make the move to Calgary officially, but knowing the move was just on the horizon was a hopeful sign for the future and a calming thought for her chronically-overthinking brain.