Matt Lempe’s ice time will no longer increase on Friday.
The Rangers’ rambunctious rookie will be a healthy scratch against the Red Wings, marking the fourth time in the last five games he’ll watch from the press box.
This comes after Lempe’s incredibly brief return to action on Wednesday, when the Rangers and Devils faced off for the fourth and final time of the season in a 5-on-5 line brawl that had been going on all season. started.
The 6-foot-8 1/2 forward was on the ice for the entire two seconds before dropping gloves with Curtis McDiarmid. They danced for about a minute, then the demon enforcer added a few more shots.
All other Rangers on the ice (Rempe, Barclay Goodrow, Jacob Trouba, and Quandre Miller) were ejected for secondary combat as Jimmy Vesey first engaged the Devils’ Curtis Lazar.
“I thought I was going to spend about five minutes there with my friends, and we were all going to hang out and get cozy and have a good time, and then they came and said they weren’t there anymore,” Rempe said Thursday. He spoke after optional practice. ”are you kidding me? ‘I didn’t know that was a rule and I thought, damn, TOI. [time on ice] That match didn’t go well. It was a tough two seconds, but I was able to get the crowd excited and then get off, so it was great. ”
The two seconds Lempe spent on the ice without fighting on Wednesday brought his career TOI to 76 minutes in 14 games.
Rempe averages one goal, one assist, and 69 penalty minutes in 5:26 per game.
Of course, the 21-year-old Rempe became a central figure in the Rangers-Devils feud this season after he injured two Devils players, Nathan Bastian and Jonas Siegenthaler.
For the latter of the two high elbows, Rempe was suspended for four games.
In three career games with the Devils, Lempe has totaled 47 penalties and three ejections in 5 minutes, 03 seconds of ice time.
He became the first player in NHL history to be forfeited in all of his first three games with a single franchise.
