Player Discussion Matt Rempe - See Mod Note Post 769

[n8]

 

[eco's bones]

McIlrath is tough. He's been doing this for a long time. Rempe is 22 and he will get better and fighting players like Dylan will help to make that happen. It was a competitive battle but I'd give Dylan the edge. That said I think the takedown at the end was pretty much McIlrath having enough and wanting to end the fight. He kind of rushes Matthew off his feet. Tactically it worked out better for the Caps as it charged up their crowd and their team. The Rangers did not get off to a good start and the fight didn't really lift us. They were more ready to play the game than we were.

 

[Crease]

If he’s just around to fight the other team’s heavies, it’s a sideshow not an advantage.

 

[GoAwayPanarin]

Hes lost most of his fights.

 

[Mike in Houston]

I don't think they can send him down and it not send a message to him that he was only brought up to do exactly what he did last night. Play 5 minutes and a lose a fight.

 

[Oscar Lindberg]

I don't think they can send him down and it not send a message to him that he was only brought up to do exactly what he did last night. Play 5 minutes and a lose a fight.

that’s why he’s around so I’m not sure why it matters whether it sends that message to him lol

He’s well aware

 

[Mac n Gs]

Absolutely pointless staged fight that did nothing but give the Caps momentum. Just send him to Hartford and let him find a niche because he’s unplayable at the NHL level

 

[bhamill]

McIlrath is tough. He's been doing this for a long time. Rempe is 22 and he will get better and fighting players like Dylan will help to make that happen. It was a competitive battle but I'd give Dylan the edge. That said I think the takedown at the end was pretty much McIlrath having enough and wanting to end the fight. He kind of rushes Matthew off his feet. Tactically it worked out better for the Caps as it charged up their crowd and their team. The Rangers did not get off to a good start and the fight didn't really lift us. They were more ready to play the game than we were.

Rempe's grip was wrong again. And he had chances to alter it but was too eager to swing. If he fixes that he's the best in the league at only 22... AND he needs to secure his damn helmet. Gripping by Dylan's left shoulder with his left hand he basically locked HIMSELF out, and his right hand was either falling short or landing at the end of extension, so no power. On the other hand McIlrath was punching short too. Maybe one reached Rempe, about the same as reached Dylan. The cut was from Rempe's visor when the helmet was between them and Dylan punched it into Matt's face. hahaha. That's why it was a long shallow slice.
Advantage Dylan, barely, he's smart and knows how to work appearance to his advantage as far as the crowd.
McIlrath is a vet and one of the best. Beat Deslaurier this year already as well and lit up Olivier last year. But this is about the best outcome he will get against Rempe going forward.

 

[eco's bones]

Rempe's grip was wrong again. And he had chances to alter it but was too eager to swing. If he fixes that he's the best in the league at only 22... AND he needs to secure his damn helmet. Gripping by Dylan's left shoulder with his left hand he basically locked HIMSELF out, and his right hand was either falling short or landing at the end of extension, so no power. On the other hand McIlrath was punching short too. Maybe one reached Rempe, about the same as reached Dylan. The cut was from Rempe's visor when the helmet was between them and Dylan punched it into Matt's face. hahaha. That's why it was a long shallow slice.
Advantage Dylan, barely, he's smart and knows how to work appearance to his advantage as far as the crowd.
McIlrath is a vet and one of the best. Beat Deslaurier this year already as well and lit up Olivier last year. But this is about the best outcome he will get against Rempe going forward.

It's a better grip than the ones vs. Olivier and Deslauriers last year IMO. He was able to use his reach somewhat because at least some of the time he had it under McIlrath's chin but you're right if the grip goes out to the shoulder it's no use at all. Dylan is about 6'5. He landed one good blow....the others fell short even the one that hit Rempe's visor. The rest of them were on the arms/shoulders. There was some real intent from both parties. So many hockey fights really don't have that. For whatever reason a lot of fighters these days don't have the stamina to go more than 20/30 seconds. Rempe doesn't seem to have a problem with that....even last year.

On McIlrath I've watched a lot of his fights over the years. If he has the size advantage he uses it. He'll bang away from distance and sometimes not be touched and he has the strength to jerk a lot of his opponents into a better punching position. There are smaller guys in the AHL though who are good and smart enough to get inside and when you look at someone like Mathieu Olivier he's not huge. There are real skills involved with the better guys and you learn a lot from experience and Rempe is still in kind of a learning stage.

FWIW I wouldn't want to be dealing with either of these two guys. Dylan smacking Rempe with his own visor and Rempe just ripping Dylan's helmet off. A couple of monsters.

 

[TGWL]

When every conversation is whether Rempe lost or held his own in a fight, especially a staged fight, maybe he shouldn't be on the roster.

 

[EdJovanovski]

I notice he did take one piece of advice John Scott was talking about, to grab by the collar of the jersey at the front. He really needs to get a different helmet or have his visor on differently, his visor has came down like that in multiple fights; this time resulting in a cut which made it look like he lost worse than he did as many thought the cut was from McIlraths fist. I also think Matt is a little to easy to throw down at the end, this is because he has to overcome a very high center of gravity compared to other guys and he doesn't have his man strength yet. He still looks like a lanky kid when you see him without gear on.

The people mocking his fighting ability are pretty disingenuous, he is a young rookie solely going up against the most grizzled veteran top tier fighters in the game. According to hockeyfights.com McIlrath has 159 fights under his belt. If he were even going with guys just one tier below this, like lesser known enforcers or big physical guys like a Wilson, E Kane, Schenn, etc he would be absolutely bashing their faces in.

When the every conversation is whether Rempe lost or held his own in a fight, especially a staged fight, maybe he shouldn't be on the roster.

Okay let's talk about his game last night instead then.

Some of the shifts weren't available in the stream so this is what I could muster up, but there was also one shift in the 3rd where he & Edstrom were causing havoc in the offensive zone along the boards on the forecheck. Also him going after Wilson to defend Carrick in that scrum even though he already had a cut on his face.

So what did he do that was so bad last night? All I see is that he's standing up for teammates, was analytically our best player, created two of the most dangerous rush chances of the night one of them after knocking multiple players over in our zone like they were bowling pins. He didn't take any penalties that weren't offsetting in a fight, he didn't turn it over, make any mistakes. What's the problem here? Or do you just not like the kid?

 

[mrmovies779]

Analytically our best player...he probably spent more time in the box as opposed to on the ice.Talk about reaching with the smallest sample size lol

 

[SnowblindNYR]

Honestly, I care about his fights as much as if he pulled out a table and two chairs and played poker with McIlrath. Has absolutely nothing to do with winning. Just hurts the team by playing an inferior player.

 

[EdJovanovski]

Analytically our best player...he probably spent more time in the box as opposed to on the ice.Talk about reaching with the smallest sample size lol

So when he was on the ice, he played well, and good things happened. But it's just a small sample size so actually he sucked. Got it

 

[bhamill]

It's a better grip than the ones vs. Olivier and Deslauriers last year IMO. He was able to use his reach somewhat because at least some of the time he had it under McIlrath's chin but you're right if the grip goes out to the shoulder it's no use at all. Dylan is about 6'5. He landed one good blow....the others fell short even the one that hit Rempe's visor. The rest of them were on the arms/shoulders. There was some real intent from both parties. So many hockey fights really don't have that. For whatever reason a lot of fighters these days don't have the stamina to go more than 20/30 seconds. Rempe doesn't seem to have a problem with that....even last year.

On McIlrath I've watched a lot of his fights over the years. If he has the size advantage he uses it. He'll bang away from distance and sometimes not be touched and he has the strength to jerk a lot of his opponents into a better punching position. There are smaller guys in the AHL though who are good and smart enough to get inside and when you look at someone like Mathieu Olivier he's not huge. There are real skills involved with the better guys and you learn a lot from experience and Rempe is still in kind of a learning stage.

FWIW I wouldn't want to be dealing with either of these two guys. Dylan smacking Rempe with his own visor and Rempe just ripping Dylan's helmet off. A couple of monsters.

Agreed. Dylan and Rempe are both beasts and both stand up guys. Rempe is still getting his education. When Dylan came up around Matt’s age, he had a lot of trouble with the Brian McGrattans and Ryan Reaves he faced. I’d say Rempe is actually ahead of that curve.

 

[SnowblindNYR]

So when he was on the ice, he played well, and good things happened. But it's just a small sample size so actually he sucked. Got it

There are better players out there and small sample sizes don't make that not true.

 

[eco's bones]

I notice he did take one piece of advice John Scott was talking about, to grab by the collar of the jersey at the front. He really needs to get a different helmet or have his visor on differently, his visor has came down like that in multiple fights; this time resulting in a cut which made it look like he lost worse than he did as many thought the cut was from McIlraths fist. I also think Matt is a little to easy to throw down at the end, this is because he has to overcome a very high center of gravity compared to other guys and he doesn't have his man strength yet. He still looks like a lanky kid when you see him without gear on.

The people mocking his fighting ability are pretty disingenuous, he is a young rookie solely going up against the most grizzled veteran top tier fighters in the game. According to hockeyfights.com McIlrath has 159 fights under his belt. If he were even going with guys just one tier below this, like lesser known enforcers or big physical guys like a Wilson, E Kane, Schenn, etc he would be absolutely bashing their faces in.


Okay let's talk about his game last night instead then.
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Some of the shifts weren't available in the stream so this is what I could muster up, but there was also one shift in the 3rd where he & Edstrom were causing havoc in the offensive zone along the boards on the forecheck. Also him going after Wilson to defend Carrick in that scrum even though he already had a cut on his face.

So what did he do that was so bad last night? All I see is that he's standing up for teammates, was analytically our best player, created two of the most dangerous rush chances of the night one of them after knocking multiple players over in our zone like they were bowling pins. He didn't take any penalties that weren't offsetting in a fight, he didn't turn it over, make any mistakes. What's the problem here? Or do you just not like the kid?

What Deslauriers did last year and Mcilrath did last night to take him down---there's really not a lot of defense against that. Both fights got to the point where those combatants just didn't want to fight anymore. Deslauriers grabbed Matthew behind the leg and McIlrath kind of charged at him. Pretty sure that move by Dylan kind of surprised him.

As far as sending him down again that might happen when Vesey returns.

Whether that's a staged fight is debatable. Obviously Rempe and McIlrath both knew it could happen. They've fought with each other before. It worked to the Caps momentum last night but the Rangers were off to a shit start even before that. The Caps already had the momentum before the fight. The other thing I don't really give a shit about whether it was staged or not. If Matt had done better it might have swung the momentum back to us but even so we were asleep from the opening face-off. They wanted that game more than we did. Also more important is Matthew hitting forechecking game. Too many think he's just a fighter and that's all he'll ever be. There's potential for a lot more than that.

 

[bhamill]

So when he was on the ice, he played well, and good things happened. But it's just a small sample size so actually he sucked. Got it

There are some people that just dont like that Rempe gets so much attention. Some don’t like fighting, some just like to piss on other people’s parades… It’s weird. On one hand he doesn’t play enough to make an impact, on the other hand, as a 4th line winger playing so few minutes, not committing turnovers, not getting scored on, not putting us shorthanded, he is the reason we suck and lost. It’s pretty amazing.

 

[eco's bones]

There are some people that just dont like that Rempe gets so much attention. Some don’t like fighting, some just like to piss on other people’s parades… It’s weird. On one hand he doesn’t play enough to make an impact, on the other hand, as a 4th line winger playing so few minutes, not committing turnovers, not getting scored on, not putting us shorthanded, he is the reason we suck and lost. It’s pretty amazing.

Rempe is a 4th line guy. What I look for from a 4th liner is a hard forechecking and backchecking defensively responsible player and I like guys who can play physical and I don't mind at all if one or two of them can fight. There's been talk about Rempe working his way onto the penalty kill and I like that too. He takes face-offs once in a while. He doesn't chase around players in the defensive zone. He has an idea of who he should mark in the defensive zone. He has speed....he hits really hard and he goes into the battle zones in the offensive zone. He's pretty good already at creating havoc and setting screens in front of the opposition goalie. There's a lot there there already.

I do have the idea though he's going to spend some time in Hartford this year. That when Vesey returns he's going on the 4th line and Vesey's a good player. That said I don't think once he becomes waiver eligible next year that the Rangers are going to send him down after that and risk losing him. He's a valuable piece of our future.

 

[NYRFANMANI]

Rangers being a generous club, we probably will send him down on weekends so he gets games in Hartford and then call him back so he gets more salary?

Dude needs couple more seasons, but hell, we need to develope this unicorn properly and then reap in the rewards.

Re his hitting. Opponents could get him called at anytime by just ducking, staying low while he approaches. I maintain the idea, that Rempe has to invent a new kind of squatted hitting technique.

 

[SnowblindNYR]

Rangers being a generous club, we probably will send him down on weekends so he gets games in Hartford and then call him back so he gets more salary?

Dude needs couple more seasons, but hell, we need to develope this unicorn properly and then reap in the rewards.

Re his hitting. Opponents could get him called at anytime by just ducking, staying low while he approaches. I maintain the idea, that Rempe has to invent a new kind of squatted hitting technique.

Why does everyone act that if we develop him he'll become Gordie Howe? Calling him a unicorn makes me feel like you think he's something he's not.

 

[NYRFANMANI]

Why does everyone act that if we develop him he'll become Gordie Howe? Calling him a unicorn makes me feel like you think he's something he's not.

Who TF said something about Gordie Howe?! People need to stop imagining shit, that wasn't ever said.

The dude is a wreckingball on skates, like we haven't seen in the Clubs history. Intimidation is absolutely a factor of the game, and he has it.