Matt Rempe has been in this example 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 success — a high elbow flung toward the Devils’ Jonas Siegenthaler — and stressed the necessity to grow from it.
That, greater than anything, was a “learning experience,” he said on 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 modified.
He described himself as a “marked man” within the NHL. He talked about picking his spots.
Rempe revealed that he spoke with George Parros, the pinnacle of the league’s Department of Player Safety, over the summer about which hits were acceptable and which crossed the road.
If the primary suspension was a probability for growth, this one appeared like a wake-up call blended with a tinge of desperation.
Rempe wasn’t surprised the NHL forced him to take a seat eight games. Too many hits ended up in an “inbox,” he said.
And Rempe acknowledged one other violation may 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 primary place and change into a fan favorite after debuting last February — while stopping it from becoming reckless.
He’ll have to always strike that balance moving forward.
“I don’t must make every hit, if that is smart,” Rempe said after the Rangers practiced in Tarrytown before their game against Latest Jersey on the Garden on Thursday. “Like, only make them if I do know they’re gonna be a clean hit and a very good hit in comparison with like, if it’s any way doubtful, I feel like I’d err on the side of caution for now because, like I said, I’m a marked man without delay.”
Rempe’s second NHL season has been defined by shuttling between the Rangers — out and in of their lineup — and AHL Hartford.
The limelight from his hulking spark last 12 months 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, as an alternative, ended up needing to capitalize on the top-six role the Wolf Pack greeted him with for many 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 within the third period when he scrunched Heiskanen along the boards, earning a five-minute major and the fourth ejection of his 22-game NHL profession.
“I don’t know if he’s attempting to do an excessive amount of,” Laviolette said. “I feel a part of his game is physicality, but … [getting suspended] hasn’t happened on the American Hockey League level and it’s happened here. So those are things that we confer with him about, about playing a cleaner game. And even prior to that taking place, we had more conversations about it, just the way in which he must play. But he also has to be certain that he brings his game.”
Looking back on what transpired, Rempe said that “wasn’t a very good hit.” He didn’t have any intent to harm Heiskanen and — just like March — described it as a learning experience.
He wants it to simply change into a “bump within the road” as his development, which he has been pleased with, continues with the specter of an extended suspension looming with each hit.
Rempe might want to crack the Rangers lineup again first. And when that’s the case, if Rempe returns to the ice Thursday or Saturday or really some other game moving forward in his profession, he’ll recognize the necessity for caution.
For being smarter. For not catching even a chunk of an opponent’s body — a challenge given his size — when they fight to duck out of the way in which, especially within the neutral zone.
Otherwise, Rempe predicted, “I’m gone 20 games then.”
“I need to be essentially the most physical guy there may be,” Rempe said, “but when I’m not on the ice, I can’t try this. I can’t try this.”
