Matt Rempe's road back to the NHL takes a massive setback: he is hitting a new low
Matt Rempe's 2024/25 season didn't start the way he or the Rangers would have liked, and it's safe to say that the start of his AHL stint was even worse.
Last season, one of the stories of the year for the NHL was the emergence of Matt Rempe, who made fighting, a seemingly lost art in the NHL relevant once more with fights against the likes of Matt Martin, Kurtis MacDermid, Nic Deslauriers and Ryan Reaves. While some expected more of the same this year, the Rangers were seemingly upset with the way he played when he got on the ice, and with the organization looking to see more from him, they sent Rempe back to the AHL to get more ice time and development.
Unfortunately, his latest stint with the Hartford Wolf Pack didn't quite start as expected, with the 22-year old posting a -2 in his return to the AHL with his team being outshot 20-5 in that time, seeing little impact from Rempe.
While the 6-foot-9 Rempe has never quite been known as an impactful player beyond his physical ability, even this is much worse that the organization could have hoped for, with plenty of work left to be done if he wants to turn things around and become an NHL regular. Most see Rempe as a simple heavyweight fighter in the NHL, but before making his Rangers debut, he actually showed plenty of talent in the AHL, posting 14 goals and 22 points in the 96 games he played with the Wolf Pack in 2022 and 2023.
In fact, Rempe had a career high of 17 goals scored in his final WHL season with the Seattle Thunderbirds, so there is the goal scoring ability there, and at 22-years of age there's still plenty of time to continue that development, but after game one for Hartford, things aren't looking good right now.
