Sunday to Sunday, it was quite a week for Matt Rempe and the Rangers.
It was fun while it lasted.
Islanders meet the New York Rangers in the Great Outdoors, rookie Blueshirt Adam (The Giraffe) Rempe fights Isles veteran Matt Martin.
Rempe wins on points and then makes a big deal out of it, holding up his arms a la Muhammad Ali. The mostly Ranger crowd loves it; as it should.
Next stop Newark and Rempe does a hit and run job on right wing Nathan Bastian who later gets walloped by Jacob (Jake The Rake) Trouba. Ranger fans who invaded The Rock love Rempe even more. When he plays, their Beloveds win.
On to Philadelphia where the Flyers Nicolas Deslauriers invites Masterful Matt to dance.
Whoa, brother. Whoa, sister. Some dance; a fabulous fistic mambo, rumba, cha-cha-cha and tango all wrapped up in a draw. (P.S. The Rangers win their tenth straight.)
With the Blue Jackets up next, the first-place New Yorkers had good reason to believe that this night would be more fun than a free ride on the Staten Island Ferry. Maybe a gift two points and an eleventh straight victory.
Figure the odds 20-1 for the Blueshirts. Columbus not only is in last place but a good 31 points behind Peter Laviolette's team. Losing to the Blue Jackets would be the joke of the month.
Right?
Well, the joke was on New York to the tune of 4-2 and leaving you to wonder how in the NHL world can the Rangers lose their last two games in a row to these Bottom Feeders?
The Maven, naturally, has the double-answer.
It's attrition to the body and attrition of the head. Put 'em all together and what you get is
Lavvy's first three lines playing like Looney Tunes while Rempe's fourth line is trying to pave a highway to Paradise.
As it happens, Paradise can be found on Seventh Avenue between 31st and 33d when the Blue Jackets go for their third straight over New York on Wednesday night.
Put it this way, if Lavvy's lads lose this one then the front office can start uttering lamentations about losing Patrick Kane to the Red Wings when the future Hall of Famer was available -- Kane was dying to return to MSG -- to the Blueshirts.
And if Matt Rampe does what the fans want him to do -- get even with the evil Mathieu Olivier from Biloxi, Mississippi -- Matty, old boy, you'd better think thrice.
You're better to the Rangers and better to yourself if you concentrate on being a power forward and not an oversized palooka. Yes, Chris Drury needs you on the ice -- vertical, not horizontal as you were in Columbus.
Remember, discretion is the better part of valor.
Something tells The Maven that Peter The-Perceptive-One agrees with me.
Or, may the force of Olivier's fist not be with You, Matthew!