| Matt Rempe | |
| Birth Date: | 29 June 2002 |
| Birth Place: | Calgary, Alberta, Canada |
| Height Ft: | 6 |
| Height In: | 8.5 |
| Weight Lb: | 241 |
| Position: | Centre |
| Shoots: | Right |
| League: | NHL |
| Team: | New York Rangers |
| Prospect League: | AHL |
| Draft: | 165th overall |
| Draft Year: | 2020 |
| Draft Team: | New York Rangers |
| Career Start: | 2022 |
Matthew Rempe (born June 29, 2002) is a Canadian professional ice hockey centre for the New York Rangers of the National Hockey League. He was drafted by the Rangers in the sixth round of the 2020 NHL Entry Draft.
Rempe is known for his large size at tall and 240lb.[1] He was not drafted in the 2018 WHL Bantam Draft and started his junior career with the Spruce Grove Saints of the Alberta Junior Hockey League (AJHL) after being the final cut in training camp of the Seattle Thunderbirds of the Western Hockey League (WHL).[2] Rempe made the Thunderbirds the following year and despite an injury that forced him to miss the first 15 games of the season, he posted 12 goals and 19 assists for 31 points in 47 games for the 2019–20 season.[2] [3] After the season he was drafted by the New York Rangers in the sixth round of the 2020 NHL Entry Draft with the 165th overall pick.[2] [3] Upon being drafted, Thunderbirds' general manager Bill LaForge Jr. said:
Thunderbirds' coach Matt O'Dette said "Matt burst onto the scene this year and was an integral part of our team. The work he put in and improvement that followed was eye-popping. To see it culminate into being drafted by the Rangers is fantastic."[3] Rempe himself stated:
Rempe's 2020–21 season was cut short due to COVID-19 and in 2021–22 he recorded 17 goals and six assists in 56 games for the Thunderbirds.[4]
Rempe was invited to the Rangers' training camp prior to the 2021–22 and 2022–23 seasons and during the 2022 camp he showed his physicality by fighting Wade Allison of the Philadelphia Flyers during scrimmages.[5] [6] He said "I don't know how many guys are there from last year, but I bet they'll remember me. I'm just going to go do the same thing I did [last year], play hard and physical and try to score some goals."[6] He joined the Rangers' affiliate, the Hartford Wolf Pack of the American Hockey League (AHL), for the 2022–23 season, where he posted six goals and four assists in 53 games.[4]
He was again invited to the Rangers 2023 training camp, and had fights with Ross Johnston and Scott Mayfield in exhibition games, impressing the Rangers' coaching staff by standing up for his teammates.[7] Rangers' coach Peter Laviolette said:
During the 2023–24 AHL season in Hartford he played both at wing and at centre.[1] After scoring eight goals through February 11, 2024, at Hartford, he was called up to the Rangers during the regular season.[1] He was scratched for one game and then returned to Hartford but recalled again a few days later.[8]
Rempe played his first NHL game against the New York Islanders on February 18, as part of the 2024 NHL Stadium Series, making him the first player to start his NHL career with an outdoor game.[9] Before the game when it was uncertain whether Rempe would play, teammate Jimmy Vesey said "That'd be a pretty sick first game. Stadium Series and Rangers–Islanders. We'll see what happens, but if he's in, the only thing I'd probably say is it's probably the coolest NHL debut I've seen so far."[10] It was also the sixth anniversary of his father's death.[9] Just four seconds into his first shift he was involved in a fight with Matt Martin during the faceoff and he and Martin were assessed five-minute penalties.[11] [12]
On February 22, in Rempe's third NHL game, he received a match penalty 13 seconds into his first shift for an illegal hit to the head of New Jersey Devils forward Nathan Bastian.[13] [14] Rempe scored his first NHL goal the following game in a 2–1 win over the Philadelphia Flyers.[15] In his fifth NHL game, he recorded his first NHL assist and had his fourth fight.[16] [17] On March 11, Rempe received the second match penalty of his ten-game career for elbowing Devils' defenceman Jonas Siegenthaler, who was injured on the play. Following a league hearing, Rempe was suspended for four games.[18] Rempe had five fights in his first seven games, but then only one more fight the rest of the season.[19] On April 21, he scored a goal in his first NHL playoff game against the Washington Capitals, making him the tenth Rangers rookie to do so since Matt Gilroy accomplished the feat in 2011.[20]
Rempe's frequency for fighting other players has led many in the media to label him an enforcer, despite enforcers no longer being common in the NHL.[21] [22] [23]
| Regular season | Playoffs | |||||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Season | Team | League | GP | PIM | GP | G | A | Pts | PIM | |||||
| 2018–19 | Spruce Grove Saints | AJHL | 43 | 4 | 8 | 12 | 32 | 8 | 0 | 1 | 1 | 0 | ||
| 2019–20 | Seattle Thunderbirds | WHL | 47 | 12 | 19 | 31 | 53 | — | — | — | — | — | ||
| 2020–21 | Spruce Grove Saints | AJHL | 2 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 2 | — | — | — | — | — | ||
| 2020–21 | Seattle Thunderbirds | WHL | 8 | 1 | 4 | 5 | 12 | — | — | — | — | — | ||
| 2021–22 | Seattle Thunderbirds | WHL | 56 | 17 | 6 | 23 | 93 | 24 | 8 | 4 | 12 | 10 | ||
| 2022–23 | Hartford Wolf Pack | AHL | 53 | 6 | 4 | 10 | 87 | — | — | — | — | — | ||
| 2023–24 | Hartford Wolf Pack | AHL | 43 | 8 | 4 | 12 | 96 | — | — | — | — | — | ||
| 2023–24 | New York Rangers | NHL | 17 | 1 | 1 | 2 | 71 | 11 | 1 | 0 | 1 | 10 | ||
| NHL totals | 17 | 1 | 1 | 2 | 71 | 11 | 1 | 0 | 1 | 10 | ||||