Opinion: Travis Green Was Right About Fight Night at the Garden

For those who have not watched this rivalry this year, the tension was high, and it was at a boiling point. Rangers player and enforcer Matt Rempe had been ejected twice for two hits in prior games with the Devils. In his first game against the Devils in February, he was ejected for his hit on Nathan Bastian. There was a little scrum with Jonas Siegenthaler, but the issues were far from over.

In the last meeting between the Devils and Rangers, a new face entered the fold in Kurtis MacDermid. MacDermid was looking to settle the score in this game. However, Rempe did not answer the call and then was ejected for his hit on Siegenthaler and suspended by the league. MacDermid was looking to go after that hit. However, the linesman got in, and as the parties were being separated, Rempe waved “bye-bye” with his hand to MacDermid.

MacDermid has some choice words for Rempe after that game.

“You don’t do things like that when you’re in your first year in the league,” MacDermid said after the game on March 11. “I lost quite a bit of respect for him tonight.”

This brings us to what happened Wednesday night. Rempe had been out of the lineup for the previous three games before returning to practice on Tuesday. Kurtis MacDermid had been out of the lineup nursing an injury and was getting close, according to Travis Green.

MacDermid returned to the lineup and started the game with the rest of the fourth line. Travis Green likes to start the fourth line to give his team energy. Rangers head coach Peter Laviolette has the right to match lines. He chose to go with his fourth line. Laviolette could have started his second line but did not want his top players to get into it with the Devils fourth line.

So, instead, Rempe started the game against MacDermid as a score needed to be settled. You could see both players were willing and ready to go as the Main Event of the evening. Instead, Curtis Lazar and Jimmy Vesey got things going before MacDermid and Rempe squared off. Rempe earned MacDermid’s respect on Wednesday night.

It was reminiscent of March 2012, when the Devils and Rangers had their first-line brawl. Eight players were ejected two seconds into the game. New Jersey Devils players Kurtis MacDermid, Chris Tierney, Kevin Bahl, and John Marino were ejected to start the game. Meanwhile, New York Rangers saw players Barclay Goodrow, Matt Rempe, K’Andre Miller, and Jacob Trouba ejected to begin the game. Rempe 5:03 time against the Devils 47 penalty minutes and three ejections.

After that, the head coaches had a screaming match between the benches as Peter Laviolette and Travis Green had some choice words for each other. Green did not understand why Laviolette was so upset.

“As far as Peter and I go, I look over, and he’s yelling and talking to me. I’m more than willing to go and talk to him. And I have no idea why Peter (Laviolette) would have been upset, and again, that’s not on me why he’s upset.”

From there, Will Cuylle and Dawson Mercer had a scrap minutes later into the first period. Nobody should be shocked or surprised that this happened despite what people say. This was brewing and boiling over between these two teams. It is an emotional game, after all.

Again, it is about the code of hockey, and Travis Green was right. Fight Night at the Garden would not have happened had things settled in the prior game.