Rangers heart Matt Rempe has been assessed an eight-game suspension by the league’s Division of Participant Security for a boarding/elbowing infraction towards Stars defenseman Miro Heiskanen, the league announced Sunday.
Rempe laid the hit on Heiskanen (explained further here) within the third interval of Friday’s 3-1 win. He was ejected on the play, the fourth time he’s confronted such self-discipline in his 22-game NHL profession. He was additionally assessed a two-minute minor for elbowing on the play, in addition to an extra roughing minor within the aftermath.
Unsurprisingly, after being suspended four games for the same infraction towards Devils defenseman Jonas Siegenthaler in March final season, he was supplied an in-person listening to, which supplies DoPS the choice of suspending him for six video games or extra.
Rempe already missed Sunday’s loss to the Hurricanes, so he has seven extra video games to serve. He’s thought of a repeat offender below Participant Security pointers and can forfeit $80K in wage throughout his suspension, relays Chris Johnston of TSN and The Athletic.
He’ll nonetheless depend towards the lively roster and the workforce’s wage cap throughout that point, lowering the Rangers’ flexibility for an prolonged interval. He can enchantment the suspension to league commissioner Gary Bettman, so he could be again sooner than Jan. 9 towards the Devils if he’s profitable.
The incident was one in every of many controversial ones in Rempe’s younger profession. The 22-year-old, who the Blueshirts chosen one hundred and sixty fifth total within the 2020 draft, has gathered 95 PIMs in simply 22 appearances over the past two seasons whereas averaging 5:46 of ice time per recreation.
The wealth of time spent within the dressing room or the penalty field has restricted his effectiveness offensively and put the Rangers in additional short-handed conditions than they’d like, though it’s additionally price noting he’s drawn essentially the most penalties per 60 minutes of any Ranger over the past two seasons.
The 6-foot-8, 240-pound winger has spent most of this season on project to AHL Hartford, the place he has three targets, two assists and 22 PIMs in 18 showings with a -3 ranking. His recreation towards Dallas was solely his fifth NHL look of the season.
Within the meantime, Rempe’s absence will safe extra ice time for growing depth choices like Brett Berard and Adam Edstrom. They nonetheless have veteran Jonny Brodzinski readily available as an additional ahead to enter the lineup if mandatory.
