The New York Islanders made sure to protect their number one overall pick on Monday.
By now, it should be evident to most hockey fans that Matt Rempe serves a singular purpose for the New York Rangers: to inflict punishment. In just two seasons, he has managed to be suspended for more games than he’s registered points, a statistic that speaks volumes about how he is deployed. Little wonder, then, that the Islanders devoted considerable effort to insulating Matthew Schaefer from Rempe—an enforcer whose presence on the ice evokes less a traditional power forward than hockey’s own approximation of Attila the Hun.