The Flyers lost 2-1 to the Rangers on Saturday afternoon in a tight game highlighted by an absolute slugfest between Nic Deslauriers and Matt Rempe:

My goodness. When’s the last time we’ve seen an NHL fight like this? That was an old school slobberknocker.

Matt Rempe is 6’8″ and 21 years old. Deslauriers is 6’1″, 12 years older, and giving up 10 pounds. It’s one thing for him to hang in there at all, but it was an even fight and he put Rempe on the ground with the judo trip to end it.

The whole thing started in warmups, according to Rempe:

“It was a great fight. We were throwing bombs, a long fight.  Yeah, it was awesome. Got the juices flowing. It was unreal.” 


This reminds me a little bit of the Aaron Rowand thing. Rowand was here for a cup of coffee but ran into the fence to catch that ball and Phillies fans never forgot about it. If Deslauriers never played another game for the Flyers, it wouldn’t matter, because people would remember that time he fought a 6’8″ guy in 2024 and made it look like a Broad Street Bullies moment.

I’m sure there are some people out there who will say some version of “who gives a shit about fighting, the Flyers lost.” That is certainly true. They did lose, and Rempe scored the game winner, which was a goofy deflection off his leg. But it was a tight game between two good teams, a bunch of loser Rangers fans in the house, and a matchup that felt like it had extra juice to it. That’s been lacking during these last five seasons of Flyers hockey, that old-fashioned dislike of the classic rivals. Philly is a better sports town when these Rangers, Penguins, Capitals, Bruins, and even Devils games mean something.