Matt Rempe has been in this situation before.
Just over 10 months ago, back in March, the 6-foot-8 ½ forward served a suspension, acknowledged he made a mistake with a hit — a high elbow flung toward the Devils’ Jonas Siegenthaler — and stressed the need to grow from it.
That, more than anything, was a “learning experience,” he said at the time.
But as Rempe sat in front of his locker Wednesday and addressed an eight-game suspension — double the term of his ban as a first-time offender — that followed a crushing Miro Heiskanen hit on Dec. 20, his tone changed.
He described himself as a “marked man” in the NHL. He talked about picking his spots.
Rempe revealed that he spoke with George Parros, the head of the league’s Department of Player Safety, over the summer about which hits were acceptable and which crossed the line.
If the first suspension was a chance for growth, this one sounded like a wake-up call blended with a tinge of desperation.
Rempe wasn’t surprised the NHL forced him to sit eight games. Too many hits ended up in an “inbox,” he said.
And Rempe acknowledged another violation could lead to a “huge suspension,” forcing him to confront the daunting challenge of embracing his physicality — the strength that helped him carve out a marginal role in the first place and become a fan favorite after debuting last February — while preventing it from becoming reckless.
He’ll need to constantly strike that balance moving forward.
“I don’t have to make every hit, if that makes sense,” Rempe said after the Rangers practiced in Tarrytown before their game against New Jersey at the Garden on Thursday. “Like, only make them if I know they’re gonna be a clean hit and a good hit compared to like, if it’s any way in doubt, I feel like I would err on the side of caution for now because, like I said, I’m a marked man right now.”
Rempe’s second NHL season has been defined by shuttling between the Rangers — in and out of their lineup — and AHL Hartford.
The limelight from his hulking spark last year faded and was replaced by an inability to earn minutes.
Head coach Peter Laviolette inserted Rempe into his lineup just five times this season, and his ledger contained just over 31 minutes of total ice time and 24 penalty minutes. Rempe, instead, ended up needing to capitalize on the top-six role the Wolf Pack greeted him with for most of the last two-plus months.
He embraced those AHL minutes. After getting called up by the Rangers before the Stars match in December, he gushed about those opportunities, and in his first window to showcase his strides, Rempe drew three Dallas penalties.
But that progress evaporated in the third period when he scrunched Heiskanen along the boards, earning a five-minute major and the fourth ejection of his 22-game NHL career.
“I don’t know if he’s trying to do too much,” Laviolette said. “I think part of his game is physicality, but … [getting suspended] hasn’t happened at the American Hockey League level and it’s happened here. So those are things that we talk to him about, about playing a cleaner game. And even prior to that happening, we had more conversations about it, just the way he needs to play. But he also has to make sure that he brings his game.”
Looking back on what transpired, Rempe said that “wasn’t a good hit.” He didn’t have any intent to hurt Heiskanen and — similar to March — described it as a learning experience.
He wants it to just become a “bump in the road” as his development, which he has been pleased with, continues with the threat of a longer suspension looming with each hit.
Rempe will need to crack the Rangers lineup again first. And when that’s the case, if Rempe returns to the ice Thursday or Saturday or really any other game moving forward in his career, he’ll recognize the need for caution.
For being smarter. For not catching even a piece of an opponent’s body — a challenge given his size — when they try to duck out of the way, especially in the neutral zone.
Otherwise, Rempe predicted, “I’m gone 20 games then.”
“I want to be the most physical guy there is,” Rempe said, “but if I’m not on the ice, I can’t do that. I can’t do that.”
