Matt Rempe and 10 NHL All-Time Cult Heroes

New York Rangers rookie Matt Rempe has taken the NHL by storm in one of the most old-school ways possible: He has delivered massive bone-crunching body checks and taken on almost all comers.

The 21-year-old made his NHL debut at MetLife Stadium during the Stadium Series against the New York Islanders. And in the five games he's played, he's dropped the gloves three times and gotten kicked out of a game against New Jersey for a major hit on Nathan Bastian.

Rempe has been a human highlight reel from a bygone era, and he's already won over many Rangers fans and made rival fans see red. But to be a player who wins the favor of the home fans so quickly and not be one who regularly fills the net, it means bringing something else to the table.

Whether it's by brawling, being a big hitter, or having a personality bigger than the city they're playing in, becoming a cult hero in the NHL means making a mark.

Let's check out Rempe and other players from now and the past who have made a mark on the league and won the favor of the fans by often doing what others can't, won't, or never would in the first place.

We've got to kick this off talking a little more about Rempe. After all, he's the guy who got us thinking about similar players throughout NHL history. We could've written about 50 different names for this, but we had to rein ourselves in a little.

Seeing Rempe in action, not only delivering big hits and fighting but also getting the game-winning goal against Philadelphia over the weekend, was like watching a player from the 1980s or 1990s dropped into the current game.

At 6'7" and 241 pounds, the Canadian is an imposing figure. Not only is his physical play intimidating, but his pure size alone is terrifying. When you mix in how he's been willing to throw down with anyone who's challenged him, it's pretty staggering all around.

He delivers big hits and punches and, as Columbus' Mathieu Olivier and Philadelphia's Nicolas Deslauriers showed, he takes as well as he gives.

We realize fighting is going away in the NHL for very good (and very obvious) reasons, but players willing to do it can earn respect because of it.

The Rangers are an exciting team to watch already, but with Rempe adding a major physical presence and intimidation factor, it provides them with someone who will get everyone's emotions up on and off the ice.

Watching Arber Xhekaj during the Prospects Challenge in September 2022 in Buffalo, New York provided a moment when you knew he would become an instant fan favorite and an opponent's nightmare at the same time.

During that preseason tournament, the 23-year-old delivered huge hits to fellow youngster Zachary Massicotte and dropped the gloves enough to show that it was a bad idea for anyone to do that against him.

Xhekaj made an immediate impression on Canadiens brass by being a physical player and a strong defenseman. He boasts a monster slap shot and plays with a kind of swagger you love to see from any young player.

However, players around the NHL have learned quickly that if they want to throw down with Xhekaj, it's not likely going to turn out well for them.

In his rookie season he put up 101 penalty minutes in 51 games. This season, he spent some time in the AHL, but upon returning to Montréal he's been more focused on defending than fighting and that's probably for the best.

But if anyone tries to stir it up with Habs stars Nick Suzuki or Cole Caufield, Xhekaj won't be too far behind.

There's maybe no other player in recent NHL history who's been able to win the favor of just about everyone where he plays more than Ryan Reaves.

From when the 37-year-old started in St. Louis in 2010 and throughout his career with Pittsburgh, Vegas, the Rangers, Minnesota and now Toronto, his gregarious ways and bright personality have made him a hit with teammates and fans alike.

Reaves also cuts an imposing figure on the ice. At 6'2", 225 pounds, he's all muscle. And any time in past seasons we've seen him drop the gloves, it's often been a bad idea for his opponents.

He was a big hit with the Blues during the first six-and-a-half years of his NHL career and although he had a short stay with the Penguins, his next stop in Vegas proved to be his most fruitful. Joining up with a new franchise and providing them with one of the biggest personalities in the league to help sell the game gave the Golden Knights a great figure to welcome new fans in Sin City.

His first season with the Maple Leafs may not have gone as well as hoped, but he's in the first year of a three-year contract there.

However, if Toronto draws the Rangers, Flyers or Panthers in the playoffs, he might be just the guy the Leafs will want to have to draw the ire of their heaviest hitters away from their big scorers.

Nicolas Deslauriers plays as hard as anyone else out in the NHL, and that kind of game earns respect the hardest way possible.

When he was drafted by the Los Angeles Kings in 2009, he was brought in as a defenseman. But when he eventually made it to the NHL with the Buffalo Sabres, he did so up front where there was a lot more action to be had. He's never looked back since.

Now in his 11th season and with his fifth team in Philadelphia after stops in Montréal, Anaheim and Minnesota, Deslauriers delivers big hits, a physical presence all over the ice and an eagerness to fight for his teammates at any time.

It's almost a rite of passage for any eager pugilist in the NHL to square off with Deslauriers, as we saw with Matt Rempe in one of the biggest fights in recent league history.

Everywhere Deslauriers has been he's been a huge favorite of his teammates for a bevy of reasons, but most of all because they know he's got their back any time they need him.

That he landed in Philly, home of the Broad Street Bullies, made all the sense in the world and his personality and eagerness to fire up any game have made him an instant hit.

Arguably, no player has epitomized the role of cult hero like John Scott.

At 6'8" 260 pounds, he was impossible to miss on the ice. He came out of Michigan Tech in the NCAA and landed in the NHL thanks to being a big guy who could intimidate opponents with his size and used his fists when needed.

From Minnesota to Chicago to the Rangers to Buffalo and San Jose, Scott was a fan favorite because of all those reasons. He was also beloved because he's always been one of the most affable and nicest guys in the sport.

Things got a bit weird when he went to Arizona and was the focus of a Twitter campaign to get him elected to the All-Star Game that landed him a starting role in the game.

There was a sketchy trade to Montréal, and the Habs sent him to their farm team in Newfoundland which nearly got him booted from the All-Star Game. But the fans spoke up when they saw how it appeared he was about to miss out on the gala match.

But he ended up going despite being in the AHL and no longer being with the Arizona Coyotes, and he went on to claim MVP of the All-Star Game because his Pacific Division teammates made it a point to keep feeding him the puck.

It would have been a dream come true for anyone, but for Scott it was a moment that took him from being a cult hero and made him a cult legend.

It would be remiss of us if we didn't have Paul Bissonnette on this list, but that's not just because he's part of the panel during games on NHL on TNT.

He went from being a self-described "grocery stick" to being the first NHL megastar on Twitter. His stories about being drafted by Pittsburgh and doing what he could to play alongside Sidney Crosby to talking about his parents in Welland, Ontario as well as some of his more, er, "colorful" tales made him the Arizona Coyotes' biggest star.

On the ice, he was a battler and a tough guy. For 202 NHL games with the Penguins and Coyotes, he racked up seven goals, 22 points and 340 penalty minutes. But it was on Twitter that he was able to bring in fans from all over the place and become a cult superstar.

With a personality that's bigger than Toronto, he's turned his playing career into becoming a major NHL media star on TV and online. Cult hero no longer, Bissonnette is a man of the people now and killing it.

If we're going to talk about legends with a cult following, going back to the '80s and '90s opens the door for a number of grinders and brawlers who won the favor of their hometown fans and the ire of all others. No other player better followed that line than Tie Domi.

He played for the Toronto Maple Leafs, New York Rangers and the original Winnipeg Jets. At 5'10" and 213 pounds, he was a pitbull on the ice. He was quick, strong and had the kind of edge to his game and willingness to fight that made him a hero in each of his NHL stops.

But it was in Toronto where Domi became more of a legend. He played 777 career games with the Maple Leafs and amassed an astounding 2,265 penalty minutes to go along with 84 goals and 112 assists. He carved out a history of battling the toughest players on their biggest rivals be it Rob Ray in Buffalo, Bob Probert in Detroit or Stu Grimson anywhere he played.

Domi was able to get under the fans' skins as well. There was the infamous moment in Philadelphia where he was in the penalty box chirping with Flyers fans who were having their say back. He then dumped water over the glass on the fans, and one man was so enraged that he leapt at the plexiglass partition and fell into the penalty box where he found out what it was like to fight an NHL player in an enclosed space.

Domi's legacy in Toronto was bigger than that one moment, of course, and his career of laying it on the line for the blue and white earned him legendary status among the fans.

For over 14 seasons in Buffalo, Rob Ray was the guy who made sure the Sabres' biggest stars weren't going to run into any trouble.

In 889 games with the team, he piled up 3,189 penalty minutes and wound up sixth in NHL history in PIMs with 3,207 (he ended his career with Ottawa in 2004).

Starting in the 1989-1990 season, Ray teamed up with Brad May and eventually Matthew Barnaby to give the Sabres the kind of edge that made them a nightmare for teams hoping for a comfortable night. They played physical and mean, and they made sure you played it straight up.

Ray exemplified this over his career handling any and all comers and being one of the most prolific and best fighters in the league. With the regional rivalry between the Sabres and Toronto Maple Leafs, it meant Ray and Tie Domi crossed each other's paths more than a few times and produced some of the most famous hockey fights in history.

Ray was also credited as the reason the NHL added a rule in 1994 about having sweaters tied down. During fights, he would lose his shirt and pads, which meant opponents couldn't grab them in fights and allowed him to throw his fists with ease.

The rule says that if a player is busted for not having their jersey tied down during a fight, they get a game misconduct. Quite a legacy, indeed.

Although Brad Marchand was sometimes referred to as "the little ball of hate" for a time with Boston, that nickname belonged to the originator of driving opponents batty with his hard edge and relentless energy: Pat Verbeek.

During his 20-year NHL career with New Jersey, Hartford, the Rangers, Dallas and Detroit, his reputation for driving the net and scoring goals was only surpassed by his reputation for irritating opponents.

In 1,424 career games through the '80s and '90s, the now-Anaheim Ducks general manager piled up 2,905 penalty minutes, although he wasn't a brawler. He was too good of a scorer to spend his time throwing fists with guys who were more than likely bigger than him (he measured 5'9" 192 pounds).

Instead, he allowed his play to do some of the talking, and his relentlessness and physical play did the rest.

In an era filled with heavyweight fighters, Verbeek was an innovator of displeasure for opponents on the ice which made him an important cog of the Dallas Stars' run to the Stanley Cup in 1999.

There's perhaps no player who can still stir up emotions to this day like Dale Hunter.

During his career with Quebec/Colorado and Washington, he earned a reputation for being one of the toughest and nastiest competitors on the ice. He played in 1,407 games and scored 1,020 points. He was an imposing forward with the ability to score around the net and a tenacious defender up front.

But it was Hunter's mean streak he was best known for.

He ended his career with 3,565 penalty minutes, second most in NHL history behind Tiger Williams. In 11 of his 19 seasons, he had 200-plus penalty minutes but never cracked 80 points in a season. He had one season in which he didn't have 100-plus penalty minutes, his final one in Denver where he played in 12 games and had 17 PIM.

Hunter is infamous for leveling Pierre Turgeon in the New York Islanders' series-clinching Game 6 win against Washington in 1993. The play separated Turgeon's shoulder and although he came back later on in the playoffs, it earned Hunter a then-record 21-game suspension. Saying his name to an Islanders fan will still get them to curse his name. They wound up losing in the Wales Conference Finals in five games to Montréal.

Hunter eventually captained the Capitals to their first Stanley Cup Final appearance in 1998 and was part of the Avalanche's run to the Western Conference Final the following year before retiring.

He was appreciated in Quebec City because his trade to Washington landed the Nordiques the draft pick in which they selected Joe Sakic. He was beloved in D.C. for how he laid it all on the line for the Caps, but he was reviled most everywhere else.

No one player best exemplified how wild and ferocious the NHL was in the 1980s and 1990s like Bob Probert.

In 16 seasons, his first nine with the Detroit Red Wings and final seven with the Chicago Blackhawks, he was, arguably, the most feared fighter in the NHL. He was part of the Wings as they came out of their darkest years of the late 1970s and early 1980s alongside young superstar Steve Yzerman.

While Probert was a fearless brawler, he also had some skill and landed a spot in the 1988 All-Star Game. That season he had 62 points and a league-leading 398 penalty minutes. He was a rock star in Detroit and beloved for his style of play.

Probert had his demons, though.

He served three months in prison for smuggling cocaine into the U.S. from Canada and was given an indefinite suspension from the NHL in March 1989, but he was reinstated a year later. After he signed with Chicago in 1994, he was banned for the lockout-shortened 1994-1995 season for violating the league drug policy.

After he returned to the league and wrapped his career in Chicago, injuries and the change in style of the league itself caught up to Probert and he retired in 2002.

For 935 games, he had 384 points and 3,300 penalty minutes, fifth most all time.

In his years brawling with Wendel Clark and especially Tie Domi, Probert thrilled fans and earned the love and respect of his teammates on the ice. Although his story is an unfortunately familiar one for many tough guys in NHL history, his legacy as a player is one in which he became a legend for two historic rival teams.