New York Rangers forward Matt Rempe was suspended four games and fined $17,038 by NHL Player Safety on Tuesday for his elbow on New Jersey Devils defenseman Jonas Siegenthaler.
The incident occurred with 30 seconds remaining in the second period of the Rangers’ 3-1 victory Monday night over New Jersey. As Siegenthaler dumped the puck into the New York zone from center ice and pulled up to avoid contact from the body of the Rangers’ big man, Rempe raised his elbow and made contact with the defenseman’s head.
He fell to the ice and departed from the game, not returning for the third period. Rempe was assessed a five-minute major and a game misconduct. This is the second time in as many meetings against the Devils that Rempe laid a predatory and dangerous hit. He was given a match penalty on Feb. 22 for an illegal check to the head of forward Nathan Bastian.
“Call it predatorial or whatever you want to call it,” Devis interim head coach Travis Green said. “It’s definitely not the first time that it’s happened, and it’s the second time against us.”
“He was just tracking the hit,” Rangers head coach Peter Laviolette said in defense of Rempe. “I don’t want to comment too much on it until I see the hit again. I only saw it once live, but I hope Siegenthaler’s OK.”
At the start of Monday night’s game, New Jersey’s newly-acquired tough guy Kurtis MacDermid attempted to drop the gloves with Rempe, who has already built a reputation as an enforcer after just 10 career NHL games with 54 penalty minutes. Rempe turned down MacDermid and did so again when he confronted him after the hit on Siegenthaler.
“There’s a bit of a code. I thought he would’ve answered that,” MacDermid said after the game. “I don’t know what he was told, but he said no. And after a hit like that [on Bastian], it goes without saying you should answer the bell in some way and be a man about it. Then he throws another hard hit that gets him kicked out and with a possible suspension. There’s a right way to go about things and the wrong way… I lost quite a bit of respect for him tonight.”
The decision for the suspension came after Rempe had a hearing over the phone with NHL Player Safety on Tuesday afternoon.
