With stalwart defenseman Tyler Wotherspoon out for the Rocket in Game 4 on Friday, head coach Pascal Vincent turned to Noel Hoefenmayer for the first time this postseason.
Hoefenmayer, a fifth-year pro, was acquired by Montreal from Edmonton on Dec. 6, 2024, in a trade for forward Jacob Perreault. He totaled five goals and 16 assists in 43 regular-season games between Laval and Bakersfield this season. The Toronto native also played in the 2023 AHL All-Star Classic, held at Place Bell.
Wotherspoon’s status remains unclear after he left Game 3 with an undisclosed injury. Friday was the first game he has missed all season.
Josh Dunne continues to deliver when it matters most.
His four-point night on Friday kept Rochester’s season alive. Last postseason with Cleveland, he had a goal and an assist in the third period of a series-clinching win over Syracuse, and scored once in Game 4 and twice more in Game 5 with the Monsters facing elimination in the conference finals against Hershey.
“He’s the best,” head coach Michael Leone said of the fourth-year pro out of Clarkson University. “I can’t say enough. I love him, man. I get emotional talking about him. He means everything to our team. He’s been unbelievable for our group. As a coach, you want to get the team to where at the end of the season it’s not a coach-led team, it’s a player-led team. And that’s what this group is. They’re incredible.”
Leone said that he had been wanting to put together a line of Dunne, Tyson Kozak and Riley Fiddler-Schultz. Kozak added a goal and an assist in the Game 4 win.
“They’re just relentless on the puck,” Leone continued. “Every shift. You win with guys like that.”
Admirals head coach Karl Taylor predicted that his team would be playing today.
This will be the fifth time already this postseason that the Admirals have needed a win to extend their season. After tonight, in 11 playoff series under Taylor since 2019, the Admirals will have played 55 of a possible 59 games, including eight winner-take-all matches. They are a remarkable 16-4 in that span when facing elimination.
“What’s new?” Taylor asked rhetorically after Milwaukee’s 2-1 overtime win in Game 4. “Going five games with Texas, it seems like we do that every year.”
Mutual respect exists between the two Central Division rivals that no intense playoff series can dampen. But going through these tough match-ups offers both teams significant opportunity for growth and development as they continue to test each other.
“That was a great hockey game,” Taylor said Friday. “Both teams want to keep doing what we’re doing, and that’s what’s going to make [tonight] such a great game. The lessons learned in playoffs, some people say it’s times two or times three. You’ve got to live these moments to grow as a player.”
Taylor’s Texas counterpart, Neil Graham, expected much the same from this series.
“Mentally, going into this series we prepared that this could be going the distance,” Graham said Friday night. “History would tell us that. They’re a heck of a hockey club, but so are we.”
After Magnus Hellberg surrendered six goals in Game 2, Graham’s decision to turn back to Remi Poirier has paid off. Poirier has a 1.36 GAA and a .945 save percentage in his two appearances in the series.
― with files from Patrick Williams
