Matt Rempe shows Leafs enforcer Ryan Reaves a lot of respect after having fought him
Matt Rempe's rookie campaign has started off with a bang and the youngster is now building himself a reputation of dropping the gloves in a time where the lost art of fighting has almost disappeared. In his NHL debut and on his first shift of the Stadium Series, Rempe fought Matt Martin, he then dropped the gloves with Nicolas Deslauriers, Mathieu Olivier, and most recently, with Ryan Reaves.
The list of players he has fought belongs in the hall-of-fame as they represent the cream of the crop of heavyweight enforcers that are still in the league today. After potentially having the fight of the year against Deslauriers, the youngster was humbled when he fought Olivier as he came to practice the next day sporting one of the nastiest black eyes you'll ever see. The belief was that against Reaves and the Toronto Maple Leafs, he was going to keep his cool and not spend half the game in the sin bin. As it so happened, that was not the case.
After a hard hit that forced Ilya Lyubushkin out of the contest, it was almost a foregone conclusion that the two heavyweights would square up with one another at some point. As has been the case with all his fights, it was a marathon before both players decided to call it quits after a myriad of punches.
For Rempe it was surreal to be able to fight a player like Reaves. I'm sure any young enforcer in this league looks up to players like Martin, Deslauriers, and Reaves and he's fought all of them in short order. Rempe is a bit of a throwback player and has a lot of respecr for how they play - especially Reaves:
"That guy is a legend. That guy has been one of the most feared men in the league for 15 years."
Rempe's comments come following a set of comments from Reaves, during which he also expressed his respect for the Rangers' rookie forward.
"Yeah, he's a real nice kid. He talked about how the media pumped it so much, two Original Six teams going at it and all everyone was talking about was a fight. It was cool, it was cool to see that fighting's not dead in this sport, people still get amped up for it and enjoy that part. He's a really nice and humble kid, talked to him in the box a little bit, he's going to be a menace in this league."
Rempe is only 7 games into his career but he has already picked up 37 PIMs, dropped the gloves against 4 of the biggest heavyweights in the league, and has tallied 19 hits while averaging just 4:48 TOI. Reaves might be onto something when he says he's going to be a menace in this league. Of course, Rempe will have to work on rounding out his game to the point where he's seeing at least 8-10 minutes per game to avoid jumping back and forth between the NHL and the AHL.
| POLL | ||
5 MARS | 145 ANSWERS Matt Rempe shows Leafs enforcer Ryan Reaves a lot of respect after having fought him Which fight has been the best of Rempe's rookie year? | ||
| Matt Martin | 41 | 28.3 % |
| Nicolas Deslauriers | 67 | 46.2 % |
| Mathieu Olivier | 37 | 25.5 % |
| Ryan Reaves | 0 | 0 % |
| List of polls | ||
