We will never know.
That’s right; we’ll never know if Matt Rempe is a one-dimensional jerk, a Sideshow Charlie, or – if you’ll pardon the expression – an honest hockey player.
This afternoon’s Garden game between the Islanders and Rangers was expected to provide the answer. But we already have the answer.
He’s back in Hartford where – many sensible Blueshirt fans will tell you – he belongs. Please note, The Maven is not one of them.
When I said at the top of the column “We’ll never know,” I meant that the New York headquarters – that’s you, Chris Drury and you, Peter Laviolette – didn’t never gave Rempe a reasonable chance to become a true three-dimensional stick-wielder.
What Lavvy did was throw the Big Guy a little bone; like five minutes of ice time here and seven minutes there. The poor guy never got out of first gear.
But let’s be honest, Rempe is as much at fault as anyone. When the Rangers imported him from Hartford last season to face the Islanders in an away game at MetLife Stadium, Rempe had the opportunity to showcase his hockey skills.
So what did the biggest and heaviest player in the NHL do? He thought it was a better idea to hit Islanders Matt Martin, who was 26 pounds lighter than Rempe and four inches shorter. How could Rempe lose?
Okay, okay, so are you telling me he had to show how hard he was? But more than anything, we wanted to see if the skating giraffe could play hockey and he never really got the chance.
Oh, he could fight – sort of. He made the mistake of going after Matthieu Olivier last season and the Blue Jackets right winger simply knocked him down. Rempe’s recent fight against Washington’s Dylan McIllrath left Matt with a bloodied left cheek.
“New York fans love tough stuff,” says The Old Scout, “but they also know their hockey. They wanted to see Matt do more than fight. They wanted to see him score goals and call plays.”
Jess Rubenstein, a longtime birddog of the ice slopes who was the first to peg Vincent Mancini as a future NHL ace, agrees that — if handled correctly — Rempe could be a great, useful player . (Repeat: if handled correctly.)
So we are left with Sideshow Charlie whose act could have brought back vaudeville but failed to impress the Rangers high command.
It also didn’t impress savvy hockey fans — like New Rochelle’s David Perlmutter — who told me from the start that Rempe had no place.
Wise Hockey News columnist Ken Campbell agrees, but with a succinct Canadian perspective.
“I don’t have time for one-dimensional henchmen in hockey. I don’t have time for Matt Rempe.” Neither does Peter Laviolette. So it’s goodbye to a brief Broadway hit returning to the road.
