Matt Rempe: Height, Fight Record and Full Profile

Matt Rempe is a forward for the New York Rangers, listed at 6-foot-9, making him the tallest player in the league and tying him with Zdeno Chara as the tallest in NHL history. Matt Rempe has fought more than forty times at every level he has played, more than thirty as a professional, has been suspended twice by the league, and made his debut in front of 79,690 people at an outdoor game. He has also said, in as many words, that he does not want fighting to be the whole of it.

Fast facts: Matt Rempe
Current team	New York Rangers, No. 73
Position	Centre, listed as a right wing by some databases
Shoots	Right
Born	29 June 2002, Calgary, Alberta
Height / weight	6-foot-9 (206 cm). Weight listings have run from 241 lbs in 2024 to 268 lbs in the NHL’s own listing, see below
Drafted	2020, sixth round, 165th overall, New York Rangers
Contract status	Two years signed 18 June 2025, through 2026-27, cap hit $975,000. Restricted free agent in 2027

How many fights has Matt Rempe had?

More than forty, counting every level, and more than thirty of them as a professional. The fight-tracking database HockeyFights logs them in three places: NHL regular-season games, three seasons in the AHL with Hartford, and his junior years in the WHL, where he had eleven. The Associated Press described him in December 2025 as having “over a dozen fights in the NHL and nearly 50 in his life”, which rounds the same record upwards.

Everyone remembers the first. He fought Matt Martin on his opening shift in the NHL, and they made the arrangement on the spot.
“That first shift, we lined up there and he told me congrats and asked me if I wanted it,” Matt Rempe said afterward.

He has been direct about not wanting the label. “I don’t want to be a guy who just fights. I want to be known as tough,” he told The Canadian Press in April 2024.

What are Matt Rempe’s career stats?

Season	Team	League	GP	G	A	P	PIM
2019-20	Seattle Thunderbirds	WHL	47	12	19	31	53
2021-22	Seattle Thunderbirds	WHL	56	17	6	23	93
2022-23	Hartford Wolf Pack	AHL	53	6	4	10	87
2023-24	Hartford Wolf Pack	AHL	43	8	4	12	96
2023-24	New York Rangers	NHL	17	1	1	2	71
2024-25	Hartford Wolf Pack	AHL	18	3	2	5	22
2024-25	New York Rangers	NHL	42	3	5	8	67
2025-26	New York Rangers	NHL	26	1	0	1	11

Matt Rempe spent thirteen and a half minutes in the penalty box for every point he scored in his first three NHL seasons. Across 2023-24, 2024-25 and 2025-26 he played 85 regular-season games for eleven points and 149 penalty minutes, and 149 divided by eleven is a shade over thirteen and a half.

A second number runs counter to the usual story about him. His penalty rate across three AHL seasons was 1.80 minutes a game and across those three NHL seasons 1.75, which is as close to identical as two numbers get. What changed when he reached the NHL wasn’t his conduct, but how often he is in the lineup.

Has Matt Rempe been suspended?

Twice, and the second time the league called him a repeat offender. He was given four games in March 2024 for elbowing New Jersey’s Jonas Siegenthaler, forfeiting $17,083.32 in salary, and eight games in December 2024 for boarding and elbowing Dallas defenceman Miro Heiskanen, forfeiting $80,000. He also took a match penalty for an illegal check to the head in February 2024 that drew no supplemental discipline.

Why was Matt Rempe’s NHL debut unusual?

Because it happened outdoors, in a football stadium, in front of 79,690 people. Matt Rempe played his first NHL game at the Stadium Series at MetLife Stadium on 18 February 2024, a 6-5 overtime win against the Islanders, and NHL.com wrote that he “became the first player to make his League debut in an outdoor game”.

He was a 165th-overall pick who had been cut from his first junior camp, and 1,229 days passed between the draft and that first shift. He scored his first NHL goal six days later, at Philadelphia, in the Rangers’ tenth straight win. Then-coach Peter Laviolette’s verdict on the debut was short: “He couldn’t have had a better night.” The channels and streams for every Rangers game are in our guide to how to watch the New York Rangers.

Is Matt Rempe still in the NHL?

Yes, and on the roster rather than in the minors. Matt Rempe has been a Rangers roster player since his debut in 2023-24, he is no longer exempt from waivers, so sending him to Hartford would mean exposing him to the rest of the league, and he is a fourth-line forward who goes in and out of the lineup rather than playing every night.

Coach Mike Sullivan’s framing is that the value is situational. “Remps is a disruptive player when he plays for us,” Sullivan said on 14 October 2026. What he offers when he plays is physical rather than statistical, and the club has never needed him to score.

The listed-weight question belongs here too, because it keeps moving. NHL.com’s own feature in February 2024 had him at 6-foot-7 and 241 pounds; the league has since listed him at 268; the Rangers’ own release in June 2025 said 255, and PuckPedia and EliteProspects both list 254. Nobody publishes his height on skates, which is the single most-searched version of the question.

Did Matt Rempe play college hockey?

No. He went from the Seattle Thunderbirds of the WHL to Hartford in the AHL and then to the Rangers, with no college season anywhere.

The confusion is understandable, because his sisters are the college hockey players in the family. His twin older sisters Stephanie and Alexandra both played NCAA Division I hockey at Brown, Stephanie on defense and Alexandra at center, and he has said plainly why he started: “I played hockey because they played hockey.” Our profile of Rangers reporter Michelle Gingras covers the broadcast side of the same team.

What is Matt Rempe’s contract?

A two-year deal signed on 18 June 2025, covering 2025-26 and 2026-27, with a cap hit of $975,000 and a total value of $1.95 million, according to PuckPedia. It expires after 2026-27, when he becomes a restricted free agent, and he would reach unrestricted free agency in 2029.

That number is worth holding next to the suspensions: the eight-game ban in December 2024 cost him $80,000, which is a little over eight per cent of a full season’s pay on his $975,000 cap hit.