rangers Sent Matt Rempe to Hartford for a few AHL games under the guise of believing that was the most beneficial thing for the 6-foot-10 forward at that moment.

But four days later, Rempe was back on the MSG Training Center ice with the Blueshirts.

Rempe wasn’t just skating as an extra, he was also set to play on the right side of the fourth line against the Capitals on Tuesday night in Washington. This will be his third NHL game of the season.

The 22-year-old actor sees everything as normal. This AHL stint was no different.

The Rangers say they want Rempe to be a more complete player, but playing him an average of five minutes a night and only using him against heavier teams with fighters would place the Big 73 in the enforcer role, which he has stated the team does not actively do. I don’t want.

“No, we have 21, 22, 23 players on our roster on any given night,” head coach Peter Laviolette said in response to the idea after practice on Monday. “We will put in the squad we think gives us the best chance to be successful. “That doesn’t mean it has to be that way; injuries happen throughout the year.

“The lines, the squad and the people in the squad played well. They did a good job. We make decisions based on what we think we need for any given night. For him to come down, play two games and play 16-18 minutes in each situation is great for him and his development.

“He is a young player who continues to work on his game and his craft. We saw an opportunity, we saw the opportunity to go down and catch him for a few minutes, and that’s what we did. “Now he’s coming back here and we’ll make those decisions based on what we need here.”

Rempe should play as much as possible, whether it’s in the NHL or the AHL. Even if he makes it to the NHL level, the holes in his game won’t be filled with practice time alone.

So the idea of ​​sending Rempe to the Wolf Pack made perfect sense after he served as a healthy scratch for the Rangers in four of the first six games of the 2024-25 season.

Bringing him back just because Tom Wilson and the Capitals will be on the other end of the ice Tuesday night — if that’s really the reason — feeds the narrative that Rempe is just here to hit and fight.

Of course, that will be part of his role for years to come, but Rangers’ short leash on Rempe will need to be lifted if his development as a versatile player is to continue.

“I’m still very young,” Rempe said on how he stays mentally prepared for his next NHL meet. “I want to go and make plays. I want to improve my game. I need to get a lot better in every aspect. I think it’s great for me to go and play. This was the first time I played the PK and the power play in a professional hockey game. This was the first time I played on the PK and power play in a professional hockey game on special teams on the weekend.” That was the match I played in. So that was great.

Rempe didn’t have a strong showing in Hartford; where he played in the middle of the second line between Adam Erne and Jaroslav Chmelar/Nate Sucese and finished minus-three with two shots on target in two games; an overtime win and a three-goal overtime defeat.

Theoretically, playing all situations in the AHL is beneficial for Rempe, but it is difficult to correlate how a top six in the AHL would help sliding in the middle as well as a bottom six role in the NHL. That he would be a wing at the NHL level.

Rempe said it was a big change from playing less than 10 minutes a night to over 15 minutes, focusing primarily on his physicality when trying to make plays.

There needs to be a little more uniformity with Rempe, who is committed to whatever the Rangers think is best for him.

“The last two games I got to play 17, 18, 19 minutes, I played at center, I played in every situation; that was good for me,” he said. “I haven’t played a lot of minutes in a long time, so it’s been good for me to be able to catch all these game situations, feel the puck, not just play on the physical side but be in the top six.”