The cat is finally out of the bag as for why Tony DeAngelo was upset and became disgruntled at the end of his short tenure with the Philadelphia Flyers – it was John Tortorella!
It’s not actually a surprise though since his rift with Tortorella was common knowledge. However, being a member of the Flyers probably precluded him from opening up and discussing his side of the story during the regular season. That is until yesterday, when he officially signed a new contract with the Carolina Hurricanes.
There’s a stark contrast between comparing the person and comparing the player and sometimes that gets lost in translation. For whatever checkered past DeAngelo carried with him and might’ve brought over to Philadelphia didn’t seem to transpire any further within the confines of the Wells Fargo Center and beyond. The issue always stemmed from the price of acquisition and how the front office viewed him compared to what he actually brought to the table.
The offensive defenseman was seen as Ryan Ellis’ replacement and was further evidenced from the horse’s mouth in his immediate press conference. Chuck Fletcher admitted that once the season had ended, the brass sat down and diverted their attention from the budding free agent superstars to a partner for Ivan Provorov and chose DeAngelo.
Their reasoning being that he was coming off a renaissance season where he scored 51 points in just 64 games, was a +30, and had averaged a career high 19:47 TOI. What they failed to recognize – at least openly – was that he was partnered with Jaccob Slavin – a player the Flyers don’t have any comparable for – and he played in a system that was talented from top to bottom – something the Flyers severely lacked.
All the comments about how DeAngelo will thrive once again with Carolina are justified and probably true but that has a little less to do with Tortorella than it does with the entire picture, which includes the state of the team, expectations, player personnel, and most importantly that Carolina isn’t rebuilding.
Say what you will about Tortorella, but there are just as many and probably more players who praise his coaching than those who have complaints. It’s just that the complaints are always louder and covered with more regularity than the praises. DeAngelo and Kevin Hayes might’ve had issues, but what about Morgan Frost, Owen Tippett, Noah Cates, Cam York, Carter Hart, Scott Laughton, and Travis Konecny? On top of one his biggest and avid supporters in Cam Atkinson?
Rod Brind’Amour is a players’ coach, is more modern, and recently is more successful however compare the two teams and their motives. The Flyers don’t have a Sebastian Aho, Andrei Svechnikov, or Jaccob Slavin on the team, let alone a Brett Pesce, Brady Skjei, or Martin Necas. Then you add in the players they’ve acquired since DeAngelo departed in 2022 in Brent Burns, Dmitry Orlov, and Michael Bunting, and they look primed for at least another Eastern Conference Finals run.
Based on intangibles, DeAngelo was always 4th-6th best in Carolina and was essentially masked by their brilliance, whereas in Philadelphia he immediately became a top-2 guy with no one to mask his deficiencies on defense – something we witnessed in short order once the season began. In 2020-21, the Hurricanes had Slavin, Pesce, and Skjei as well as Ian Cole, Brendan Smith, Ethan Bear, and Jalen Chatfield. This year the Flyers had DeAngelo at the top and behind him were Rasmus Ristolainen, Travis Sanheim, Justin Braun, and Nick Seeler.
Fast forward to 2023-24 and the Hurricanes are positioned to have Slavin, Pesce, Skjei, Burns, Orlov, and DeAngelo as their top-6 options with Dylan Coghlan and Jalen Chatfield as depth. Brett Pesce has been rumoured to be on the trading block with both sides far apart in contract negotiations but even then, DeAngelo would be the 5th best option. Playing with either Slavin, Pesce, Orlov, or Burns will do him wonders instead being stuck with Nick Seeler, Travis Sanheim, or even Marc Staal in Philadelphia.
Should Tortorella have been so outright and frank about his defensive and on-ice issues? It’s pretty difficult to hide behind the curtain in Philadelphia with the market and the media being the way they are but that’s also the double-edged sword that is Tortorella. You have to take the good with the bad, the same way you had to take the good and the bad with DeAngelo.
“Last team he played for – Carolina – I think they could absorb some of that with their roster as far as maybe some of the deficiencies defensively. It kind of sticks out more with us. I think he’s one some great things for us here. It’s just…. we want to try to help him and we feel he needs to get better defensively without taking away any of that great offensive ability he has.
“We know what Tony is. I’m a little bit – not disappointed – but the defensive liability is something we need to work at. I didn’t think the amount of work that we need to do with him… I didn’t think that at the point in time that we got him. But it is what it is.”
This was a Fletcher move and it screamed of absolute desperation, which has further put a microscope on the Flyers. He was never worth the 2nd, 3rd, and 4th round picks that he dished out, let alone a 2-year deal worth 10 million as a pending RFA. The Flyers bought him out after the NHL nixed their initial trade to Carolina due to alleged cap circumvention.
Daniel Brière wasn’t going to wait any longer as the Hurricanes had eyes for Erik Karlsson and rather than losing another retained salary slot, he decided to buy him out after they were afforded a second window with Noah Cates filing for arbitration.
It also should’ve been very apparent that the two were not going to mesh – something that pretty much everyone else saw coming. Tortorella has always demanded effort, hustle, a 200-foot game, completeness, and responsible hockey, most of which didn’t apply to the offensive defenseman.
It’s understandable that some are upset and potentially even a little bewildered that Brière “caved” in to Tortorella’s demands and bought out DeAngelo instead of waiting until the trade deadline but what has been the core ideas coming from the Head Coach, General Manager, president, and CEO? Changing the culture. And how do you change the culture? You root out the disgruntled players who no longer want to be a part of this team or who don’t fit the future plans – i.e. Kevin Hayes, Ivan Provorov, James van Riemsdyk, Tony DeAngelo.
But they didn’t receive a prospect or a pick and are carrying dead cap next season, what about that? Cap space means very little right now to the Flyers for the first time in eons. When Ellis is placed on LTIR, the Flyers will have $9.217 million in cap space, are projected to have $23.323 million next summer – once again not including Ellis’ LTIR placement – with only Owen Tippett and Carter Hart being of utmost importance in terms of new deals.
It also become pretty apparent the Hurricanes weren’t interested in acquiring DeAngelo at even a $2.5 million AAV and dishing out prospect or a pick, especially if Karlsson was on their horizon. With a bidding war between Pittsburgh, Carolina, Toronto, and Seattle ensuing, their attention diverted. Former 7th round pick Massimo Rizzo would’ve been a nice prospect to add to the pipeline but if the deal was still on the table, it would’ve taken place once the NHL lifted the cap circumvention curtain.
The Hurricanes eventually waited things out and got their man at just $1.6 million and can now focus on potentially unloading Pesce and looking to add Karlsson.
This is also how a rebuild works and after a couple years of unanimity from the fan base of the desperate need for a rebuild, patience is required. You’re not unloading Couturier, Atkinson, Konecny, Laughton, Hart, Hayes, DeAngelo, Provorov, and Sanheim all in the first year.
While there were discussions, some of them were just the Flyers doing their due diligence in listening, while others were more focused on righting the several wrongs that Fletcher committed – Hayes, DeAngelo, and Sanheim. Brière had also intimated several times that they weren’t going to have a fire-sale in his first year as general manager.
The focus isn’t on 2023-24 or even 2024-25, it’s about the years after that and beyond. Baby steps will be taken from now to 2025-2026-2027 but that is when the Flyers potentially see themselves coming out of this rebuild and contending. In that time, contracts will be unloaded, draft picks will be acquired, retained salaries will be apart of a lot of deals, and in totality it’s about years 1-2-3, not solely fixated on the present.
Laughton will still have high trade value in a year or two, Konecny will still have high trade value in a year or two, and Hart will still have high trade value in a year or two. Even in a down season, Konecny scored 50+ points in 2021-22, Hart was top-10 or top-15 in a lot of analytical goaltending categories this season, and Laughton is viewed for his completeness and his usage as a utility knife with the ability of scoring 20 goals and 45-50 points no matter what he actually does on the ice for the Flyers.
The fact that we unloaded our second leading scorer and our top point producer on the backend, you’re focusing solely on the statistics and not on the grand picture. Hayes was lackadaisical, barely put in a full effort, and finished the season with 9 points in his final 32 games. DeAngelo was an offensive defenseman that had no room on the Flyers’ depth chart and while he put up points, let’s also not forget the severe mistakes that cost them time and time again, whether in the first period, second period, third period, or in overtime – that’s not the style of play Tortorella wanted.
The young prospects need room to grow and a lot of patience, something that couldn’t be afforded with Hayes and DeAngelo blocking spots. Yes, they added veterans in Marc Staal, Victor Mete, and Garnet Hathaway, but the prospects will still need to showcase their best to win a spot in training camp. If they can’t beat out Staal or Sean Walker or a Mete, then maybe they do need more time to marinate in the minors, which will bode well for the future years.
Staal and Mete only signed one-year deals, so they’re not permanent fixtures but the Flyers wanted the right mix of old and young and were no longer interested in players who would’ve caused some sort of stir in the locker room or weren’t going to be on-board with what the head coach wanted to see on the ice. Not the best role models for the young prospects to look up to when Hayes isn’t back-checking or a DeAngelo keeps turning the puck over behind the net. Accountability is what we asked for, and we got that in spades with Tortorella.
So while it was disappointing that the Kevin Hayes trade wasn’t as big as we originally thought, or that the Flyers had to buy out DeAngelo, everything is about the future, and the big picture is about 2025, 2026, 2027 and beyond.
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