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NHL Officials Facing Backlash For Embarrassing Penalty Call On Matt Rempe

Originally posted on Blade of Steel | By Tom Banks | Last updated Mar 14, 2025 1:29 PM ET

Matt Rempe has been called for a lot of penalties in his short career, but on Thursday, he was the victim of a poor call by the NHL officials for the first time.

Early in his NHL career, Matt Rempe has been a menace to opposing players every time he steps on the ice, but after a suspension early in the 2024/25 season, it became clear that he was a genuine danger to his opponents.

Unsurprisingly, this has drawn permanent attention from the NHL officials, who won't let very much go when it comes to the hulking New York Rangers forward, meaning that he needs to be on his best behaviour for the most part.

On Thursday however, things changed, as Rempe was targeted by the officials with a dreadful call, as they called him for a two-minute minor on an interference penalty for skating into his opponent.

The problem is, in this rare case, Rempe did absolutely nothing wrong. While attempting to follow the play down the ice, Rempe was skating past his opponent, and for some reason, one of his opponents simply skated into him and fell over, prompting the whistle from the officials.

It's easy to see why a player would go down when colliding with Rempe, but in this case he did nothing to force Devin Shore to the ice, and in another rare case, fans have come to his defense on social media.

Ultimately, the officials can't get it right on every call, but in this case, they got it wrong in a bad way, and after getting so many penalty calls that he deserves, in this case, Rempe wasn't in the wrong but still managed to spend two minutes in the box for absolutely nothing.

This article first appeared on Blade of Steel and was syndicated with permission.

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