Matt Rempe’s headshots on Nathan Bastian and Jonas Siegenthaler caused damage on the ice. They were also recent examples of one of the NHL’s continued problems. This post reviews the examples and puts it in context.
Nathan Bastian last played for the New Jersey Devils on February 22, 2024. He played 1:41 over 3 shifts. This was for two reasons. The first was Matt Rempe taking out Bastian with a headshot. Clear as day from just the thumbnail preview picture in the video from Scouting the Refs. Rempe was ejected for this hit with a match penalty. There was no additional punishment from the league.
The second was in coming back into the game in the second period and proceeding to fight New York Rangers captain and 2024 Mark Messier Leadership Award Winner Jacob Trouba. Bastian, who was given two for roughing and five for fighting, would not return after the fight. The next day, Bastian was placed on injured reserve with a “lower body” injury. The Devils’ own report said the injury was unrelated to the Rempe hit. Nothing about Trouba was in the report. Either way, Bastian was out. He would be done for the season with that injury.
This incident would be revived in March. On March 11, the Devils visited the New York Rangers. Kurtis MacDermid was since acquired and in the lineup for this game. He took exception to said hit, as revealed later. This lead to nothing. MacDermid went on to do nothing in the game other than get a 10 minute misconduct. As did Matt Rempe for elbowing. But that was not due to a fight or anything, something Rempe refused. No, Rempe took out Jonas Siegenthaler with an elbow to the head.
As the trainers were seeing to the fallen defenseman, MacDermid was held back impotently trying to fight Rempe. Rempe, as he was escorted off the ice, waved bye-bye to him as a toddler-approved taunt. Rather than have things escalate, the refs sent both players to the showers early. Ken Daneyko did not get the fight he and others may have wanted. Siegenthaler was knocked out of the game and would not return until April 2.
On March 12, Rempe was suspended for four games for the elbow on Sigenthaler. His first actual suspension in the league and conveniently less than the number of games that would allow the NHLPA to challenge the league’s punishment. Rempe would have been eligible to return on March 19, but he was held out of the lineup.
On March 20, Rempe was going to be brought back in. This led to plenty of the Ranger local media to ask about the player and the incident. Per Mollie Walker of the New York Post, Rempe had this to say about the hit:
“Just a learning experience,” Rempe said of his suspension for his high-elbowed hit on the Devils’ Jonas Siegenthaler. “Made a mistake, and just going to learn from it and grow. At 21, still got to learn lots of things. Watching games, you learn a lot. I can go watch a lot of the older guys and see what they’re doing.
“Got lots of great reps in practice, got to work on my skill, got to work on a lot of things. It was great. Obviously, you never want to be suspended, but you learn things, and you get better and you grow.”
…
“More control of my body, just stuff like that,” he said of what he’s learned. “If a guy is pulling out of a hit, just got to be careful. It was an accident. I thought I was going to hit the wall. … Never want to see a guy get hurt or anything like that. I’m still going to play super-hard, play the same way.
“I’m just going to make sure my hits are clean, like, keep everything compact, keep everything tight. It will be good. Just live and learn.”
The Bastian hit in February was brought up in that same article. MacDermid, while not a member of the Devils in February, wanted to fight Rempe for it. Rempe refused citing that he “had his instructions.” Which I presume would be from the coaching staff.
On X, Rempe’s head coach, Peter Laviolette, had the following to say with respect to the headshot on Nathan Bastian. Walker’s own replies to her message add further detail as well as confirms it is about the Bastian hit and not the Siegenthaler hit.
X.com
On April 3, the game opened with a line brawl. This caught a ton of attention. Rempe and MacDermid had their fight. As did Trouba and Chris Tierney; Kevin Bahl and Barclay Goodrow; K’Andre Miller and John Marino; and Curtis Lazar and Jimmy Vesey. Only Lazar and Vesey avoided getting a game misconduct out of the ten skaters. Your mileage may vary on who won the brawl. The Rangers won the game.
Earlier this week, Walker reported at the New York Post that Matt Rempe had a fight camp with Georges Laraque. To be fair, he never said he would stop throwing fists. Near the end of the article, Walker waxes poetic:
He also believes fighting will always be part of hockey. It’s probably true, too.
Just as the NHL’s gladiator era began to slip away, Rempe hauled it back in with two fists and a dream.
The role of the enforcer is still alive and well in the NHL.
Rempe certainly played a part in that.
Maybe you saw it already but I want to make the connection here.
Before I go further about the above, let me add one more tidbit. A little over a week earlier than Walker’s effusive report about Rempe’s fight camp, Rick Westhead reported at TSN that former NHL player Greg Johnson was posthumously diagnosed with chronic traumatic encephalopathy, also known as CTE.
This is the disease that has forced plenty of leagues to try to do something to address the effects of it. Not the NHL. NHL commissioner Gary Bettman continues to deny the connection – I’m sorry, a “conclusive link” – between concussions and long-term neurological disorders. Something even the NFL admitted eight years ago and have taken some sort of action.
We do not know for a fact whether Bastian suffered a concussion from Rempe’s hit on him in February. We do know he underwent the concussion protocol afterward so the concern was there. We do know that Rempe’s hit on Siegenthaler did lead to a concussion. Given the continued evidence of former players suffering the effects of CTE after a career of throwing fists and taking hits high, we cannot ignore that this is happening to players currently active. It is hard to read this and not think something has to change.
Of course, it will not. To use a former legends words, it’s status quo.
This is not really a post about the Devils-Rangers rivalry. If you jump into the comments about rave and rant about Rempe and how the Devils get pushed around and how the line brawl restored respect and how this won’t happen next season, then you missed the point of this post. For that, I apologize. It is my job to make it as clear as I can. This is not about Matt Rempe or Jonas Siegenthaler or Nathan Bastian in particular. They are just the subjects of one of the league’s more recent examples of its headshot cycle. To summarize:
- One player takes out another with a headshot. The hitter gets punished on the ice and only gets off-ice punishment if it is especially bad or a repeat move – and not even then sometimes. The victim is at risk of suffering a concussion or some other injury.
- The head coach of the punished player defends the player to the press. Understandable, but reinforces that what the player did was not so bad. The press leaves it at that knowing they can’t or won’t push on the coach (or team) further about the incident.
- Punished player claims to change his ways to the press. Proceeds to do something not indicative of said change. Gets praised by the press anyhow; the incident being a distant memory. Some may provide a more measured take of this state of affairs but it will be left at that.
- The league can say they followed their process, convoluted and inconsistent as it is.
And while this is obviously written with the bias of me being a Devils fan and seeing players on my favorite team suffer, you can keep a lot of the above and just change some names, teams, and small details while still making the larger point. Watch this happen again with other players and other teams in this coming season. Almost like clockwork. So let us explore the possible reasons why I and you and others should not expect anything to change – as if we believe it was going to anyway.
Nothing is going to change with this because there is not a reason for the principals to make a change. In this case, those would be Rempe himself, his head coach (and by extension, his team/organization), and the league. An opponent has yet to fully deter a player from doing terrible things on the ice (among many examples, see Tom Wilson and the Rangers failed attempts to “get revenge” for how he flexed on them years ago).
And as much as the media can highlight issues and hold some to account, they have yet to force a significant change in the league’s activities. If Westhead and Strang can’t on their own, then Walker and your local beat reporter is not likely going to either.
What would that change look like? Let us consider each:
- Matt Rempe decides, on his own, to actually be careful about how he throws hits. This is certainly possible. Given that he went to a fight camp and Walker, of all reporters, is claiming he brought enforcers back, I doubt he is going to stray from that role. He has to fulfill the seemingly present fantasy of fans and media wishing for a Nick Fotiu of the 21st Century. If only Rempe was from Staten Island. Anyway, given all of the praise and attention and minutes he’s received, why should he stray from this role? A role lends itself to throw those kinds of hits? Because he was suspended for four games? Come on.
- Laviolette and/or the Rangers decides to hold Rempe accountable. We know Laviolette and/or others on his staff gave orders to Rempe about fighting. That explains the no fists against Non-Deterrent MacDermid on March 11. Rempe said he followed instructions. I would like to believe someone sat down with Rempe – privately – to tell him to knock this off since it literally hurts his team by doing this. Getting ejected and/or taking major penalties does not help his team win games. And they won plenty of games without him. Yet, it is hard to believe that actually happened. And public declarations of shoulders to heads being a “big hit” is more telling than just a coach sticking up for his guy.
- The National Hockey League, and more directly, the Board of Governors – the people actually in charge of the NHL – puts a stop to headshots through enacting far more severe punishments. This requires more than a bullet point because the other major bitter pill of harsh truth to swallow is the following: the NHL can stop this at any time they want to.
Really. They can. Consider that the league, with the support of the NHLPA, changed four rules for next season. One of them is for players sitting on the boards during play – as in, it will not be allowed. This is because of one (1) incident where a linesman was cut by a skate of player whose legs were over the boards back in March. This change is being specified in the rulebook for next season. I am fine with this change. It is important for the safety of those on the ice – and even those on the boards, in case they get knocked over. What I am not fine with is that they can make this change for safety purposes but will not do anything further about headshots.
And they know it is a problem. As much as Bettman is denying the links, players are being knocked out of games and beyond the game from it. They put in Rule 48 in 2011 to make intentional head contact a penalty. They would not make it a rule if they did not think it needed to be ruled on. Which of course is not particularly effective. Here is link to a page with the rulebook. You do not need to be ref to understand the issues with Rule 48.
For one, it puts the onus on the official to actually call it. Read the above summary of events of Mr. Rempe and you’ll notice I did not include Rule 48. He was not assessed that specific penalty on either February 22 or March 11. By rule, it has to be called by the official. Which means the official can just miss it or call something else and the player effectively gets away with it. For another, the penalty is limited to either a minor penalty (48.2) or a match penalty (48.5). Rempe might have received this on February 22, but it was not in the game’s records. There is no in-between for an official to decide. For a third point, the breakdown of 48.1, the Illegal Check to the Head penalty forces an official to consider three factors. It is intended to avoid calls on accidental hits to the head or an opponent trying to draw one (really). But, again, intention is not reality and the reality is that a player can contact the head of another player and get away with it. And even if they do not, that brings us to the same issue with league discipline. Something I wrote about in November when Nico Hischier was taken out with a headshot. (Aside: Ondrej Palat immediately dropped the gloves and fought Connor Clifton for it. This is just mentioned here because that fact seemingly fell down a memory hole.) Going back two paragraphs, there is nothing stopping the NHL to get with the union and competition committee to refine Rule 48 or give it more teeth. They can and do update rules during and between seasons. And given all of the criticism of the league’s discipline, they can work with the union to adjust how suspensions are handed out.
But they are not doing either or something else. Why? Because they do not seem to think it is worth doing. Even with increasing number of guys being injured from it. Who is they? It is not just Bettman, but the tandem of the people who actually run the NHL, the Board of Governors (read: the owners), and the player’s union. They like the game as it is. They are fine with teams wanting to take ineffective measures into their own hands as opposed to nothing. They are OK with throwing out fewer than five game suspensions unless pushed into a corner. They do not want to get in front of this concussion-driven issue until they absolutely have to.
Here’s the thing: There is a chance they may have to in the near future.
Among the players who have been confirmed to have posthumous CTE is Steve Montador. Montador died at age 35. Since the discovery of this condition, the Montador family has sued the NHL for wrongful death. One suit was terminated in 2020 but a new one has begun since 2021. Per this Vancouver Sun article by Susan Lazaruk on June 14, the case is scheduled to be heard in Cook County Circuit Court in Chicago on March 27, 2025.
This is not the first time the NHL has been sued by players or their estates regarding their health. Past suits have either been settled or dismissed for some other reason, like Len Boogaard’s case with the NHL over Derek Boogaard. However, the suits have not stopped and I doubt that they are all not going to take a settlement. Should the Montador case get into the court, the case could get ugly in terms of the rhetoric and claims. All for the NHL to basically not have to change anything on how they handle headshots – among other physical play. They want to keep the status quo. Depending on how the case goes, the judge may rule otherwise. If so, those changes could be dramatic. Far more than you may be comfortable with. And far more than the Board of Governors and the NHLPA may be comfortable with. You know who is not going to care about the traditions of the game or how difficult it is to make changes? The judicial system. The NHL’s plan of doing as little as possible until then is going to be part of the reason why they pretty much have to be forced to make changes.
This is also primarily why Bettman has been categorically denying a link between hockey checks to the head that cause concussions and CTE. The moment that link is acknowledged by the league, changes will have to be made. Drastic ones, given the delays. Whether Bettman was told to deny the link by his bosses – again, the Board of Governors – or if he himself denies the link is beside the point.
Because of that expect this to happen again. Maybe it will be a Devil player throwing the headshot. Maybe it will be another Devil player taking one. Maybe it will be players on two teams that do not draw too much interest from the Devils fans, allowing us to be more neutral about it. Rempe, Bastian, and Siegenthaler was just the most recent example involved from this past Devils season. This is the cycle. The names and teams are just examples. Nothing is likely going to change.
Again, this is not a post about Matt Rempe, Nathan Bastian, Jonas Siegenthaler, a violent moment in a hated rivalry, or anything else. This is about the cycle of headshots in this league and how all involved are ultimately fine with this. Disregard what people say and look at their lack of actions. The players, as a union, are fine with this. The teams will back their guys as opposed to what makes sense for the game. The media will praise the offenders until they decide not to – and even then it will not be that harsh. The NHL and the Board of Governors are fine with this. Is Siegenthaler and Bastian fine with this? Maybe not, but it does not matter. Anymore of whether it matters if you and I are fine with this state of affairs. Nothing changes, and the cycle will continue. True now as it was in March when I probably should have written all of this then. True as it will be when the next incident happens. Hopefully it does not involve a Devil although I would rather have it not happen at all to anyone. Not even a Ranger.