It had been coming all season, and when puck dropped on Wednesday for the game between the Rangers and the Devils, a five-on-five line brawl ensued.
It wasn’t a big surprise that everything had to do with rookie gigant Matt Rempe.
The 6’8” forward had been ejected in each of the previous two meetings between the teams, and he was involved in a controversial incident the last time the teams played.
In that game, on Mar. 11, Rempe knocked Jonas Siegenthaler out of the game with an illegal check, resulting in an elbowing major and game misconduct.
Rempe served a four-game suspension for the hit, and Siegenthaler has just returned to the Devils’ lineup, having missed three weeks due to the hit.
After the illegal elbow, Rempe didn’t accept Kurtis MacDermid’s challenge to drop the gloves, and the rookie waved goodbye to MacDermid afterward, leading to some harsh words from the Devils veteran.
Now, Rempe had no choice but to take on MacDermid as a huge line brawl broke out. Jimmy Vesey fought Curtiz Lazar, Barclay Goodrow fought Kevin Bahl, and Rangers captain Jacob Trouba fought Chris Tierney.
All eight players were ejected from the game after just two seconds played.
But it wasn’t just players who were arguing. On the benches, Devils interim coach Travis Green had a shouting match with Rangers head coach Peter Laviolette.
Postgame, Green confirmed what we all thought: that Rempe not agreeing to fight after his hit on Siegenthaler was the cause of the line brawl.
”I have no idea why Peter was mad, to be honest… You’re going to start yelling, you’re going to get it back. And none of this would have happened if (Rempe agreed to fight last game)‚” Green told New York hockey columnist Arthur Staple.