Love Affair For Matt Rempe Needs To End After Another Dangerous Hit Against New Jersey Devils

This is going to come off like sour grapes. Little brother syndrome, or whatever New York Rangers fans say about New Jersey Devils fans. Who cares. It needs to be said. Matt Rempe is dangerous, and the love affair of his game is borderline gross. He came onto the scene by almost severely injuring a Devils player, and he might have done the same on Monday night.

Rempe has had a love affair from everyone in the media. Every big podcast and radio show dedicated to hockey is having segments dedicated to Rempe. The 6'7 behemoth became popular because he was fighting everyone. Cool, we guess? However, fighting is an antic in the game that is at least agreed upon. What Rempe has done against the Devils is unacceptable.

Call it whatever you want. Maybe we are biased because of the Hudson River Rivalry, but this just doesn't feel right.

The most recent situation came on Monday night, when up 2-0, Rempe went head hunting on Jonas Siegenthaler. There was no reason to lift his elbow, but as Bryce Salvador said on the MSG Intermission Report, he did a chicken wing to knock Siegenthaler in the head.

Rempe was kicked out of the game and given a five-minute major penalty for his efforts. We're sure there will be excuses made for his actions. "He's too tall, he can't help it." "Siegenthaler tried to get out of the way, and it was just unfortunate." Blah, Blah, Blah. This is dangerous. There's no other way to explain it.

It's rich that many of those celebrating Rempe are those who are banging on the table for the league to do something about head injuries. Well, the celebration for this kid is why they don't do anything. As much as we want to pretend we've evolved as a society since we've learned more about concussions, we're not willing to get the hits that cause them out of the game, because when they don't cause injuries, they are some of the biggest plays in the game.

This kind of hit is never fine, but it's much worse when considering that Rempe JUST DID THIS AGAINST THE DEVILS. He laid Nathan Bastian straight in the face a few weeks ago.

Somehow, Rempe wasn't suspended for the above hit. The NHL can't keep pretending it cares about its players when this keeps happening. We'll see if this hit, which is undoubtedly more purposeful, will lead to a suspension of some kind. We think it'll be a short one if it happens.