The Rangers have agreed to terms with pending RFA forward Matt Rempe on a two-year contract, Larry Brooks of the New York Post reports Wednesday. The total value is $1.95MM with a corresponding $975K AAV and cap hit, according to Peter Baugh of The Athletic. The team has since made the contract official.
It’s not surprising to see Rempe land a one-way commitment coming off his entry-level contract, nor is it surprising to see his second NHL deal remain in the six-figure range per season. A sixth-round pick in 2020, he debuted with the Rangers in February 2024 amid internal turnover on the club’s fourth line. Over the last year and change in New York, he’s produced four goals and six assists for 10 points in 59 games.
Rempe never has and never will be counted on for high-end point production. Instead, it’s his 6’9″, 255-lb frame and penchant for physicality that has led the Rangers to give him increasingly consistent deployment in limited minutes. His ceiling moving forward will be determined by how well he can effectively deploy his frame as a brutal forechecker instead of ineffective, penalizable hits. Rempe spent nearly as much time in the penalty box (71 minutes) as he did on the ice (95 minutes) in his initial 17-game trial in the NHL last season. He improved his penalty impacts somewhat here in 2024-25, only logging 67 PIMs in 42 appearances and 357 minutes of total ice time. However, he was still suspended for eight games in December for elbowing Stars defenseman Miro Heiskanen. It was the second suspension of his career after receiving a four-game ban in 2023-24.
Still, after bouncing between the Rangers and AHL Hartford for the first few months of the season, Rempe didn’t see another minor-league assignment for the rest of the year after being reinstated from his suspension in January. He’s eligible for waivers for the first time in 2025-26, so expect him to begin the season on the opening night roster and stay there for good unless an unforeseen roster crunch forces the Blueshirts into exposing him to the rest of the league. The Calgary native has 27 points in 114 minor-league games through his first three professional seasons.
Assuming no additional subtractions from their forward group via trade and prospects like Brett Berard, Brennan Othmann, and Gabriel Perreault starting 2025-26 on the opening night roster, New York has 12 forwards on their active roster for next year. That doesn’t include a new deal for pending RFA William Cuylle. The team has nearly $14MM in cap space remaining after the Rempe deal with Cuylle and defenseman K’Andre Miller still among their notable RFAs without new contracts, per PuckPedia.