The minute the names Matt Rempe and Kurtis MacDermid appeared in the starting lineups for the New York Rangers and New Jersey Devils, it was awfully obvious what was going to unfold next.
In fact the first surprising aspect was it took them two seconds after the opening faceoff to tangle in one of those fights that had a big lead in given Rempe’s past history with the Devils as part of his short career to date.
“I had no idea that was going to happen,” MacDermid said about three hours later, while wearing a dark suit and showing little evidence he was in a fight that lasted about 80 seconds. “It was just kind of a spur of the moment thing.”
Perhaps it took two seconds because while the Rempe and MacDermid affair was informally preplanned, the other four bouts might not have been. So while Rempe and MacDermid served as the main event there were four other undercards evolving simultaneously.
Barclay Goodrow took the opening faceoff and won it before tangling with Kevin Bahl. Jimmy Vesey and Curtis Lazar tangled and were the only ones not to get asked to leave in the form of game misconducts. The other bouts involved K’Andre Miller tangling with John Marino and Jacob Trouba dancing with Chris Tierney, who lost the opening faceoff.
Because of an odd rule that states the first players to fight merely get five for fighting, Lazar and Vesey could stay in a game where each team would play with 14 skaters the rest of the way.
All of this stems from the events in the March 11 meeting, which was a run of the mill 3-1 win for the Rangers. Along the way, Rempe delivered a high elbow to Jonas Siegenthaler and declined an invitation to fight, which infuriated the Devils.
“After a hit like that, it goes without saying you should answer the bell in some way and be a man about it,’’ MacDermid said at the time.
Eventually once the sideshow of the fights drifted away, there was a game to be won and it was one where the Rangers scored the first two goals, allowed the next three, looked flat for early in the third period before capitalizing on some fortuitous bounces.
These are important games for the Rangers, who would be facing the possibility of seeing their lead atop the Metropolitan Division drop to one point. The Rangers also would have fallen from the lead in the President’s Trophy race for the best overall points total.
“I’ve never seen that, I don’t know if that’s ever happened,” Chris Kreider said after preventing overtime by scoring the game-winner on a tip-in with about five minutes left. “To have 80 percent of them then be shown the gate, it’s just a weird dynamic.”
It is a weird dynamic to play through, which might account for some uneven moments but the belief is being able to survive such an affair bodes well for future games such as postseason contests where fighting rarely comes into play.
“Our guys were reacting to what was happening on the ice,” Rangers coach Peter Laviolette said while saying he didn’t know the whole thing would develop into a line brawl.. “I thought they did a fantastic job. All five of them.”
The history of the Devils-Rangers being the “Battle of Hudson” is rooted in the 1994 Eastern Conference, a seven-game series of often breathtaking performances that ended with Stephane Matteau’s double overtime wraparound sending the Rangers to the Stanley Cup final and eventual Stanley Cup title for the first time since 1940. It was a series featuring plenty of physicality but one fight when Mike Peluso and Jeff Beukeboom tangled in Game 4.
The next notable series between the teams took place in 2012. The Devils were nine years removed from their most recent Stanley Cup while the Rangers were well removed from seven straight seasons of missing the postseason and firmly established in their run of consistent playoff appearances.
The Devils won that series in six games on a goal by Adam Henrique, who fought Ryan McDonagh in Game 4 but since that series win success was fleeting for the Devils until last year when they set team records for points (112) and wins (52) and then beat the Rangers in a lopsided seven-game series that saw the Rangers open the series with 5-1 wins and the Devils get their final two wins by four-goal margins.
It was viewed as a precursor to better things for the Devils, except few things have worked out and they likely will miss the playoffs. It also spelled the end of coach Gerard Gallant and it was uncertain how the Rangers would do under Laviolette and then they exceeded expectations with a team holding a chance at the most points in the regular season.
The brawl is memorable for the rarity of it but also offered a glimpse into the current trajectories of the rivals, with the fluky bounces putting another frustrating loss on the Devils in a season where much more was expected.
