Controversial former Rangers defenseman leaves NHL, signs to play in Russia
Tony DeAngelo didn’t land a contract to remain the NHL this season, so the former New York Rangers defenseman signed a one-year contract to play for St. Petersburg in the KHL.
The 28-year-old played 31 games with the Carolina Hurricanes last season and had 11 points (three goals, eight assists) in a limited role for the team that finished behind the Rangers for first place in the Metropolitan Division.
When Brett Pesce was injured early in the Stanley Cup Playoffs, DeAngelo took on a regular role on the Hurricanes blue line. He played nine postseason games and averaged over 19 minutes in ice time per game, contributing two assists.
DeAngelo played all six games against the Rangers in the second round. He had an assist in Carolina’s Game 2 overtime loss in New York and another in its home win in Game 4.
Despite that, the Hurricanes didn’t re-sign DeAngelo this offseason. That’s despite losing both Pesce and Brady Skjei during free agency.
DeAngelo will join former Hurricanes teammate Evgeny Kuznetsov in St. Petersburg. This will be his first season outside North America since he turned pro in 2015-16.
“Last year, I played with ‘Kuzy,’ so there’s a couple guys here (I know), so that makes it a little bit easier,” DeAngelo said.
“I’ve heard a lot about the history and all that comes with the city, so looking forward to getting around and seeing it. … Excited to be here.”
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Tony DeAngelo had highs and lows during Rangers tenure
While other players his age cashed in this summer on the NHL free-agent market, DeAngelo was left out in the cold. He’s still a skilled puck mover, who has 210 points (48 goals, 162 assists) in 371 NHL games. But DeAngelo comes with baggage, including a history of controversial comments and actions that started back in his junior days and carried into his professional career.
His Rangers tenure was a mixed bag. Acquired from the Arizona Coyotes before the 2017 NHL Draft as part of a trade that sent Derek Stepan and Antti Raanta to the desert, DeAngelo was a top-four defenseman by 2018-19. Then in 2019-20, DeAngelo scored an NHL career-high 15 goals and 53 points in 68 games with the Rangers.
Things went south the following season, though. The final straw for him in New York took place on Jan. 30, 2021, in the season that began late due to the coronavirus pandemic.
DeAngelo and goalie Alexandar Georgiev had a miscommunication on who should play the puck in overtime against the Pittsburgh Penguins. Shortly afterward, Sidney Crosby scored the game-winning goal in a 5-4 Rangers loss. Heading back to the dressing room at The Garden, DeAngelo and Georgiev exchanged words before things got physical.
“Obviously there’s way more to it than just the incident with ‘Georgie’ at the end of the year,” DeAngelo explained on the Morning Cuppa Hockey podcast this summer. “Rewind a little bit; that was during the election — President transition — I had gotten in some trouble about some questionable tweets I made that offended some people, offended season ticket holders, all that stuff which, once again, totally understood.”
He also was benched by then-coach David Quinn early in the season for attitude issues. The Georgiev incident sealed his fate with the Rangers.
“It was just, to me, one of them situations where if I would’ve done the right thing from the start, from the beginning of training camp, none of that probably would have happened. But it did,” he said. “The only part I regret is what happened after — how out of control it got — that we weren’t able to get ahead of it in a quicker way where people could’ve got to the truth.”
That 2020-21 season was a lost one for DeAngelo, who played only six games. His contract was bought out by the Rangers at the end of the season. He rebounded in a big way with 51 points (10 goals, 41 assists) in 64 games with the Hurricanes in 2021-22, then played a season with the Philadelphia Flyers in 2022-23 and was back with Carolina in a diminished role last season.
Now, DeAngelo is starting over in Russia, perhaps for an extended run there. Or maybe it’s the first step in a return to the NHL.
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