I think many are being too results oriented rather than process oriented re: the Rempe hit. Putting aside whether or not it was dirty (it was), it was unfathomably stupid.
People are brushing it off because we weren't punished, but imagine: This team is on its worst skid in many, many years. We're desperate for a win any way we can take it, or really anything positive that might maybe begin to right the ship at a point when it might not even be possible. We're late in the third with a one-goal lead, barely holding on against one of the best teams in the league, getting shelled at times. Then Rempe takes a patented major with a semi-late hit, right in the numbers, gets his elbow up high, crushing one of the league's better players into the boards face-first. Dallas scores two. Rangers lose in regulation. A desperately needed win becomes the latest edition in a terrible season of finding novel ways to lose. Another dagger. People would want Rempe buried under Hartford.
That almost happened, it probably even should have happened, but we got lucky for the first time in a while and were let off the hook.
Wasn't pretty, but any win is a moral victory — doing it against one of the top teams out west gives it a different feel than the win against the Sabres.