2024 Report Card: Matt Rempe

Expectations

Frankly, there weren’t any expectations for Matt Rempe this early in his professional career. As a late sixth round draft pick in 2020, his road to the NHL was bound to be a long shot, likely reminiscent of most NHL journeymen. A saga that would presumably involve several years of grinding it out in the AHL, longing for a handful of chances as a call-up when injuries come around. All to one day hopefully stick it out as a depth forward, perhaps even as a fourth line role player further down the road. Instead, Rempe went from sixth round nobody to absolute folk hero seemingly overnight. 

From his NHL debut, dropping the gloves with Islander-Rival Matt Martin right as the puck dropped in front of 80,000 in the great outdoors of East Rutherford, New Jersey to his first NHL goal against the Flyers and all the fights and great quotes in between; Rempe quickly stole the hearts of the World’s Most Famous fanbase and carried that energy into the playoffs for the Rangers. If you were to be asked this time last year who you thought would score the first goal of the Rangers next playoff run, literally nobody would have said Matt Rempe. Yet there we were, Game 1 of the Eastern Conference Quarterfinals against the Washington Capitals… “and it’s Matt Rempe!”

Performance:

17 GP 1 Goal, 1 Assist

Rempe took the hockey world by storm to the point where national sport media outlets that typically don’t even give hockey the time of day were talking about this kid. However, if you think back to preseason last year, it shouldn’t be much of a surprise that he was on the Rangers radar. At 6”8, it isn’t hard for him to stand out but his play in training camp turned enough heads for him to become one of the later cuts made by the Rangers prior to Opening Night. Building off that experience with a full AHL season already under his belt, Rempe went into his Sophomore year with the Wolf Pack determined to continue taking strides. 

In 43 games with Hartford, Rempe had registered eight goals and four assists for a total of 12 points. Which at the time, had him tied with Brett Berard for the team’s lead in 5v5 goals. Rempe got his first call-up in early February and bounced back and forth between Connecticut and New York before making his NHL debut at the Stadium Series game. However, from that moment on, Rempe was here to stay with the Rangers. 

There are so many reasons why we love sports, and a good story is among the common theories. For this kid most casual fans have never heard of, to make his NHL debut on one of hockey’s biggest stages by dropping the gloves with one of the most respected enforcers in the league on the anniversary of his father’s passing is such an incredible moment in itself. Even if that became the only NHL game he played that season it would have gone down as a successful step forward for the 22-year old from Calgary. Of course that would just be the beginning for the Rangers rookie but it wouldn’t be all glamor and glory.

Rempe only saw five minutes of ice time in the following game which would become just about his average across his 17 games in the regular season. While he wouldn’t fight in that game against Dallas, it wasn’t long before he began to make a serious push for the “heavyweight belt”. In a span of four games, Rempe fought three times which included bouts with Nicolas Deslauriers, Mathieu Olivier and former friend Ryan Reaves. That’s probably close to, if not half of the remaining enforcers across the entire league. 

Now whatever side of the debate regarding fighting's place in hockey you fall on, there were and still are legitimate concerns with a 22-year old going out there and fighting every single night. Especially with the rising cases and groundbreaking research regarding CTE. Although as the season progressed, Rempe began to understand that and learned to pick and choose his battles, literally. This became especially evident in the playoffs when Rempe chose not to engage in any encounters with notorious Rangers enemy Tom Wilson. Granted he still ended up in the penalty box almost nightly, however I’m getting a headache just recalling the officiating in that first round series so let's move on. 

That stretch of his consecutives fights all came in between two games with the Devils in which Rempe would not make it through the entirety of either game without being ejected. The first of which came within the first two and a half minutes of the game as Rempe caught Nathan Bastian right in the head with a shoulder. Granted, Bastian was already sort of hunched forward when Rempe, who has a good five inches on him, was coming in for the hit. Nevertheless, it was a major penalty but did not result in any sort of supplemental discipline from the League’s Department of Player Safety. 

Just over two weeks and those three fights later, the Rangers faced off against the Devils once again. In that same span of time, the Devils went out and addressed the “Matt Rempe Problem” by trading for noted “tough guy” Kurtis Macdermid. Now given Rempe’s first couple of weeks in the NHL, he had listened to reasoned and drastically pumped the brakes on dropping the gloves. As a result, he had no interest in entertaining Macdermid’s motives of getting even. Sure enough, just as the second period was coming to a close, Rempe had another incident reminiscent of his hit on Bastian that left Jonas Siegenthalar in a great deal of discomfort. 

Now this one was a bit different because you could make a case that Siegenthalar had come to a hard stop and Rempe may have instinctively begun to brace himself for crashing into the boards. Regardless, the bottom line is that Rempe needs to be more aware of his size and have better control of his body when it comes to making contact with his opponents. Yet another night against the Devils he would not finish and the league decided to make a statement by suspending him for four additional games. 

Both of these situations with the Devils came as examples of a young player learning, in some cases, the hard way. Between all the excitement of cracking the NHL and all the hype that was building around him, Rempe was playing the game on cloud nine through his first month of life as a Ranger. He made mistakes with both of those hits and the suspension proved to be an eye opening moment for the Rangers rookie regarding the need to be more careful with how he plays the game. 

On the flipside, he was beginning to fight less and with the Siegenthaler situation, did his best to avoid any additional penalties or momentum changes by fighting in a game his team was well in control of. Perhaps it was the right idea in the wrong moment under those circumstances seeing as he was heavily slighted by Macdermid for not “answering the bell”. The fact of the matter was, Rempe is a young player and he was learning the ropes in the spotlight of arguably the most intense market in the United States. 

And rest assured, Rempe would finally have a proper go with Kurtis MacDermid in one of the more bizarre starts to a game we've seen in quite some time. Something we haven't seen anything like since 2021 with the Capitals and prior to that, 2012 with the Devils most notably. Everyone in the hockey world knew Rempe was going to drop the gloves with MacDermid at puck drop, Rempe's teammates included. Again, fighting debates aside it was really something seeing all four of the rookies linemates saying well if he's going to go, let's go with him. A full on 5-v-5 line brawl.

Sure enough, Rempe would be ejected for the third time in his first three matches with the New Jersey Devils. That's one way to win a fanbases heart. On top of that, Trouba, Goodrow, and Miller were also given the gate as it was determined their fights were secondary altercations which deemed game misconducts all around. Yet another instant classic for the Matt Rempe saga.

Two of the biggest critiques regarding his game involve his skating abilities at the NHL level as well as his assumption of the tough guy role. Rempe was never regarded as an enforcer type and as a result, the physical aspect of his game hasn’t come super naturally. While he certainly held his own against some of the toughest fighters in the league, there weren’t many scraps in which he won in decisive fashion. In addition to that, considering how much taller he is than the average opponent, Rempe has to be extra mindful of the mechanics behind how he delivers hits to avoid major penalties, similar to what we saw with his hit on Siegenthalar. 

However, despite the limited ice time and looking beyond the fights, Rempe did prove there is potential for a greater value to his game. This earned him a roster spot with the Rangers for the rest of the season and through arguably too much of the playoffs. While he was effective through round one, once more guys got healthy and his ice time was maxing out at four minutes, his place in the lineup that deep in the postseason wasn’t as essential. He will however, look to be an essential part of the Rangers nightly roster heading into next season. 

Author Grade: B-

Banter Consensus: C+

It’s a bit of a challenge to accurately grade his performance this season seeing as he was only around for the back half of the regular season as well as throughout the playoffs. When you consider his expectations at the start of the season, there’s no denying he certainly exceeded them. However, the extended penalty minutes, the four game suspension and limited ice time knocks him down from an easy A. 

Final Evaluation 

Rempe spoke very excitedly about his plans for the summer, expressing his goal of becoming more than just a guy who goes out there and fights. While he did identify that as a part of his game he enjoys, he wants to develop his skill sets to a point where he could play center, be trusted as a full-time, bottom six forward that can kill penalties and make a greater impact on the ice. It’s no secret he needs to continue to work on his skating in addition to being more aware of his body when delivering hits. Although, his puck handling abilities, instincts, vision and hockey IQ are evident enough to suggest he’s capable of being an effective bottom-six role player. 

While the fighting side of the game could be controversial, as long as it is a part of the sport it’s worth having players capable, willing and ideally, good at it on your roster. We know Rempe is capable and certainly willing but if he is going to continue to do it, there’s without a doubt room for improvement. As we know from the part of his summer training that has taken the internet by storm, hopefully his training with former NHL Enforcer Georges Laraque will help Rempe in that regard. 

If Rempe indeed spends the summer improving on all areas of his game, there’s a good chance he comes into training camp determined to earn a full-time spot on the fourth line. Following the second annual “Shoulder Check Showcase” it was reported that he would be spending the rest of the summer in New York training with team leader Chris Kreider who has seemingly taken the young forward under his wing. This even dates back to the postseason when the two were playing Halo and establishing a Rangers book club together in between games. You’d be hard pressed to pick a better player on this Rangers team to help Rempe work on his all around game and hopefully it will show once training camp kicks off in September.  

With Barclay Goodrow no longer in the picture, there’s certainly opportunity for him to remain on the team to start the season. However, he’ll have to compete with guys like Jonny Brodzinski, Sam Carrick and potentially Brennan Othmann in order to be a consistent fixture of the Rangers line-up. The expectations will undoubtedly be higher going into this season and it will be exciting to see how Matt Rempe responds heading into what is hoped to be his first full season in the NHL.