The Sabres had an awful year that saw the GM and Head Coach sacked at the end of it. That meant that Jared Landry, late of the Washington Capitals, was sitting in a hot seat in a meeting with an owner that was laying it on the line, a GM that needed to build a new unit fast, and a head coach that was under the gun.

He was coming in as a player that had lots of potential and showed a flash of it last year in the playoffs for the Division against the Pittsburgh Penguins. One of the other shifts needed a D-man and he showed a brief blaze of glory in the playoffs. Before that, limited stick time. His second season, the last, was supposed to be when he rolled out, but he took a slapshotted puck to the thigh that created a break...and that during a powerplay, a man down. Instead of switching out and creating another man down, even for fifteen seconds, he finished his shift in an excruciating haze of pain.

That was early season. He came back for the playoffs with a new intensity to his play, but pushed it a little too hard. Nothing big, but the medical history showed that he was still fragile, even if he was lucky. Maybe it was the training, maybe it was the rehab, but Landry was not all there in fitness.

But he was the right stuff. A thick-necked, blonde haired half-French Canadian, half-Boston Irish kid that played smash-mouth hockey at Malden Catholic and for some of the Boston area junior teams before being drafted into the Caps. Like most hockey players, he was a pretty casual dresser, with a t-shirt tucked into jeans. He sat in the spartan office with the cheap furniture and the minimalistic decoration, lots of laptops, cables and TV screens, a place of intensity and focus. Stacks of paper, guys working their asses off on every element of the game. And the new GM and coach were being worked. The pressure was on, like ozone after lightning strikes in the room.

His physical training involved a lot of weight lifting, using a guy the team set him up with, and it hadn't worked out too well. Talented guy, talented enough on that hot playoff streak that when he got injured on Game 6, it was considered a huge loss to the Caps' Stanley Cup chances. For a young guy coming in to replace a more experienced guy on the third shift, he quickly established himself with the control of the puck, the technical play.

He had ferocity, and that's why Gennaro Gatti, the owner, said that he wanted a guy like Landry. The Caps had enough D-Man talent that they were willing to trade and Bob Duncan, the GM, and Eduoard Lyon, the new Head Coach, were sold on the idea. Not only that, this was a guy that the fanbase wanted -- Buffalo was a hardscrabble city with a reputation for guts. A working class crowd wanted to see a team that would fight, with guys like Landry in there bringing steel to the spine of the unit. They'd even forgive that he was a guy that would rather be playing for the Bruins -- he played like a Boston Bruin, with ferocity, unafraid of getting in the mix. But, the playoffs showed something else; assists and goal scoring, Bobby Orr stuff.

But the trade wasn't inked yet. The Caps wanted it, because it was a good trade for them. But the GM and the Coach had to meet the guy first. They wanted to figure out the man's mindset, whether or not he had it in him to do more of that. If not, they weren't going to waste their time.

"So how do you feel about being here? Especially given the fuckin' season we just had?" Gatti was a notorious straight shooter, a squat man in exquisite clothing that did nothing to dispel the pitbull manner he engaged people. You could throw a hair treatment on a guy, but that changed little.

So Jared told him, "I came here to play hockey. I will do whatever it takes on the ice. Last season doesn't matter, because this is the next season. And nothing matters but the Stanley Cup."

"Yeah, but you just got traded by the Caps. How does that feel? They're a good team," Lyon asked. Quebecois, graying panther type, big lumnberjack shoulders in a polo shirt with a bit of gut.

"Coach, they weren't good enough to beat the Penguins, who won the Cup. They don't want me, and I don't wanna be where I'm not wanted. Hell, they don't need more defensemen, they have plenty. I want time on the stick, and if you're giving it to me, I'm your man." He had some heat and some strength to him, intensity.

That caused an exchange of glances between Lyon and Duncan; the GM made the decisions on this stuff.

Landry was great in the playoffs, coming in for someone else that took an injury, but he was fragile. He'd racked up a huge performance in the playoffs, but he needed work. They saw it in the meeting that the kid meant was going to leave it all on the ice. That spirit was what got the nod.

"That's awesome, Jared, and we're really happy to have you. But we're worried about the shape you're in. We're rebuilding this team," the Duncan laid out with nods from the other two -- they were in accord and they were going to; it wasn't like this was news, "And your problem is fitness. I want you to meet one of our best physical rehab and workout people, because I think you'll like her."

He gestured to the door. And that was the trick, women were kind of rare in this line of work.

Working as a Rehab therapist for an Ice Hockey team sounded as though it'd be pretty glamorous. Life on tour, big bucks - or at least that's what the majority of Emily's friends thought. To be honest, it was pretty much the polar opposite of glamorous. It was busy, no chaotic would be a far more adequate way of describing her work life. Especially at the moment. A shake up was an understatement. Still, it went without saying that she loved her work - as random as it was sometimes. It was a million light-years away from where she'd seen herself as a student Physio, but she couldn't be happier that she'd made that jump. Who wants to work in a hospital anyway, right?

"Brett? Brett!!"

Emily didn't work alone in the Physio department, her sidekick was the multitalented Brett. He was a Sports Therapist which in practice was some weird chiropractor - trainer feel the burn hybrid, but the pair had a pleasing dynamic. Well, when she could actually find him. With a small yawn she slumped down into her chair, and after an obligatory three sixty spin, she clicked her screen into life. Unfortunately, there were quite a few guy's on the injury roster. Everything from compression fractures to burst knee ligaments. Ice hockey was brutal, and it certainly wasn't pretty.

"I'm here, I was just looking for these!" Came a disembodied voice from the treatment room, which was closely followed by the appearance of Brett. A tall, dark haired male with a rather smug looking grin and a knee brace balanced on each arm. That in itself caused an eyebrow to perk in his female counterpart. "Why have you go those?" A slight hint of panic was evident in her voice, "Please don't tell me that we have another knee injury. I'll literally cry." And with a dramatic shake of the head, she pulled her hood up and stuck her fingers in her ears - unwilling to accept anymore bad news.

A smirk crossed Brett's crooked features as he shook his head in amusement, "Fear not, I'm ditching these two, I've ordered some of the new model. These are heading for the trash." And with that said, he unceremoniously dumped them behind his shoulder with a satisfyingly loud clatter. Emily breathed a sigh of relief and released her fingers from her ears.

"I literally can't handle another knee injury."

"Tell me about it." Brett concluded as he took the seat opposite, "Everyone's on the up, let's just cling to that."

"Right, let's do that." The sarcasm was evident in the female's tone as she rolled her dark green eyes and scooped her light blonde hair up into a messy top knot. With her petite height and build, you wouldn't necessarily associate her with such a brutal sport on appearance, but of course that would be misleading. She had attitude, and had generally been accepted as one of the guys by the team. Not to mention her reputation of being pretty brutal with rehab regimes.

"Who have we got today?" Brett asked casually as he started searching for something in his drawer. Em chewed her pen and stood up as she slipped off her black hoody and straightened out her team t-shirt, "Greg - hopefully his brace can come off today. Oh and I got some garbled message about a new guy. We'll play that by ear." And with a smirk, she added, "And anyone else that gets beaten up in practice."

"Just one more thing.." Brett piped up as he glanced up from his frantic searching, "They're hideous. You've surpassed yourself." The brunette pointed to Ems workout leggings, she was well known for her collection of rather garish workout apparel. "I love them." She purred amusingly, "Who doesn't love teeny tiny stars?"

"They're making me feel hungover. You look pixelated."

"Your hangover is making you feel hungover jackass, don't go blaming my outfit."

And with a dorky salute, Emily disappeared out the back to get ready for the onslaught. It certainly wasn't glamourous, but she wouldn't want it any other way.

Bob Duncan was showing Jared around; Lyon went back to his job and Gatti went off to do something else after there were handshakes. Inking the contract was the GM's end, now that they had an understanding and everyone was on board.

Bob was younger, a sharp Stanford business guy that was, as expected, a fanatical hockey fan. Analytics, numbers, discipline and process, those were words that came up in conversation. "We're really excited to see what you can do with the Sabres, Jared. I mean, you were just peaking with the Caps, but the fitness wasn't what it needed to be. We've got this lady that really knows what she is doing, and I think we'll be able to tune you up so you can stay on the ice."

Same thing that Jared was hoping for, in all honesty. His workouts, for better or for worse, focused on upper body strength, "It looks like you want the play to go by process around here," he observed.

Duncan nodded as they walked down the hall, gesturing in animated fashion, shirtsleeves rolled up. He wore a button down and dress pants, but with an Apple watch on his wrist rather than something fancy, "We can train people up in the technical skills, and we're gonna emphasize it, and we can get everyone physically fit, and that's a religion here. But you can't train people for guts and fire, and that's what you have. Everyone saw that power play in the fall of 2016, and everyone saw what you were doing in the playoffs. You don't like to give away the puck and you don't make a lot of fouls. You're a rock out there, but the training we're going to do will focus on building on what you have; faster, better skating, flexibility and resilience. The puck to the thigh was a fluke, but the recovery work done at Washington, at least from what Em says, was not the best, and the injury in the playoffs shouldn't have happened."

Jared nodded, as they rounded another corner, along with some introductions and waves in the hallway. He was smiling already, because guys in the hall were nodding in respect, obviously pleased to see him coming on board with the Sabres.

"I'll do whatever it takes. First match is Montreal. We need to wipe the Habs off the fuckin' ice. I want to play that game. And if you are saying you want to throw me forward and have me play center or d-man, I'm your guy. Whatever it takes." As a Boston guy, he had no love for the Canadiens, and it showed. No one liked Pittsburgh, but Boston guys hated Montreal.

"Good to hear. You'll be working with Em. She's gonna make you sweat until it's blood out your pores and is going to work on building up flexibility." When they got to the rehab room, Bob Duncan called out, "Em, we're signing this guy and we need him for the opener. This is your special project!"

"Special project?"

Emily perked an eyebrow as she rounded the corner. The treatment room annoyed the young physio beyond all reason - the design of it meant that you couldn't see the doorway from the treatment couches, so you constantly had to get up and take a look. That said, it wasn't that she was lazy of course, but she had found a way around it by scooting about on her swivel chair, much to Brett's annoyance, but that was a whole other story.

"Do I need another project?" The scepticism and her southern English accent was all rather evident as she finally emerged into view. The blonde looked between Bob and Jared. "Well he can walk, I guess that's a bonus, right?" And with a small smirk, she started to subconsciously fiddle with the zipper on the pocket of her leggings. It was starting to feel like every time Bob appeared, he'd signed on another injured player. To be honest, it felt a little like he had absolutely no idea what went in to any of this. Like she had some sorta' magic wand and it all went away. Still, she wasn't one to complain. Instead she just smiled sweetly and kept her thoughts to herself. For now at least.

"So what's broken?"

At this point, her attention finally flicked to Jared, "If it's your knee, I'm sending you back." And with those a words, a warning glance was quickly sent in Bob's direction - who merely held up his hands in surrender. You didn't upset the team therapist. "No!" He exclaimed in his own defence, "I can honestly say that it absolutely is not his knee." Well, that was good news, good enough to make Em loosen up just a little. "Should I have some kinda' report?" She asked as she wandered her way over to the laptop, "Because I don't think I have one yet." That was when the door swung open and knocked obnoxiously against the wall, causing the blonde to flinch. Hockey players had no respect for doorframes. In limped Greg, notably looking rather sorry for himself. Emily eyed him suspiciously, and pointed to the furthest couch with her pen. "Wait over there." She knew exactly what he'd done, practiced. Damn coach was determined to kill off all of the players. Greg was a left winger, and pretty good by all accounts. Still, the rather bulky New Yorker didn't utter a word as he shuffled towards the couch. He knew it was going to be painful session. If he was lucky, he'd get Brett.

"So, are we starting now, or is this just some sort of tour?" Her head cocked to side as she twirled a random piece of hair around her finger and pushed it into her ponytail. Most teams would wait for a therapists assessment before they signed a player on, unfortunately not this one.

"What position are you?"

"D-man. break on the fibula in November, 2016 against the Habs." Jared said it with a shrug; six foot even, he was built like the rest of the hockey players, wide on the shoulder and neck, strong hips and legs. They came lean and leaner for the most part, owing to the ultra-intense nature of their sport.

Greg Martin glanced over, "Holy shit, that's Jared fuckin Landry. He blocked a slapshot with his leg during a powerplay. Finished the fuckin' shift though." The dude was nodding approvingly -- when a hockey player gives another hockey player kudos for grit, you knew that it was serious business.

Jared cut in, before the physio went off, "It was stay on the shift or risk a goal while getting off the ice, so I stayed another one and a half minutes on the ice with that injury. Had no idea it was that bad, but I know I was hurt. So I did rehab with the Caps and came back to play late season, but they lost someone and I subbed in during the playoffs. So we were playing the Penguins, game 5 and the ligaments tore again, because there'd been damage from the break."

Bob cut in at this point, "And he's here because of what he was doing during those playoffs. The Capitals had a shot, and it went away when he did. We know there's work to do, but we want to sign this contract. We want you to look at it and tell us what you see. I forwarded a PDF of the medical reports that the caps gave us," he taped his ipad a couple of times, "and you can work it from here. Look, Caps said he's ready to play now. But I want him stronger. We need to work up a training regimen that strengthens the things that keep coming loose."

So that was the hitch; he was in this lady's hands. He glanced over and nodded, "Look, most of the work we did over there was with weights, and the trainer...I dunno, different ideas? If you have a program that can keep it from happening, I am all yours. I want as much ice time as possible."

Emily listened somewhat attentively, but it was sorta' hard for her to ignore the eleventy billion alarm bells that were currently going off in her mind. Ligament damage, continued to play...weights. There were just so many things that she could pick apart in that statement, but instead she consoled herself with flaring out her nostrils. Sometimes you just had to accept that there were some really crappy medical teams in NHL. When Greg piped up, Meg physically jumped, she'd been so absorbed in her own thoughts that she'd forgotten all about winger. With a blink, she gathered her senses and let out a low whistle.

"Weights? What did they think that weights would do?" But before Jared could reply, the blonde held up her hand, "Actually, don't answer that." With a small sigh, she patted the couch. "I might look at it before I read the report. They're usually crap nine times out of ten anyhow.." And that certainly wasn't a lie. In her relatively short time in the Hockey world, she'd read so many inaccurate reports that she never really trusted them anymore.

"The fibula is a real ball-ache to break. Even more so to fix it. Did they give you a support cuff after the cast? Doubtful if they let you go and screw up your ligaments..."

Emily perked an eyebrow as she pulled open her draw and started to route around. Greg smirked and motioned to the Physio with a nod of the head, "This is why not many women work in hockey. They're way scarier than the male ones." With that, Em let out a light hearted chuckle as she shook her head, "Yeah, I'm real scary." That statement was closely followed by an eyebrow waggle. "So, you can either roll up your pant leg, or take them off. Makes no difference to me."

"She says that to everyone."

"You'll also learn that Greg is the most predictable member of the team, but at least he amuses himself." And with a smirk, she twirled a cuff around her hand. "Let's see the damage."

"They gave me one, but I think they were in a rush to get me playing and cleared me too early." He didn't precisely want to say it, but he didn't exactly regret going into the playoffs. They needed someone. But it was the wrong time to say that.

"I did go out and seek treatment in the offseason with the sports center at Tufts University, but they weren't concerned with rehab, just recovery. I asked the team to let me do that for a second opinion. I brought copies, where should I send them?"

He glanced around. The winger, Greg, he knew sort of. Older, steadier type, looking for a fight for the Cup before he faded away. Hockey was a tough gig that way, with hard seasons, lots of injury and a short shelf life for people that didn't take care of themselves. He was starting to learn that the hard way after his first injury.

"I'm rated game ready by the Caps, but that's probably not quite the case if I get injured fast. We need to figure out a way to keep me from reinjuring and reinvent the fitness from the ground up."