The Tony DeAngelo Experience:
- A hot start on offense that gives fans hope of him being a valuable player? Check.
- A complete defensive collapse throughout the season that leads to being a healthy scratch at one point? Check.
- Questionable on ice/locker room decisions during the season that even his own fanbase can’t defend? Check.
- Picking fights with fans on social media? Check.
In his first season as a Philadelphia Flyer, Tony DeAngelo has already given Flyers fans the full TDA experience. Flyers fans should have seen this coming from a mile away given his history. In his his previous stops during his hockey career, he showed glimpses of what type of player and person he is. Looking back on what DeAngelo did on his other teams shows why this play and behavior this season should be no surprise.
Pre-Draft OHL: Sarnia Sting
This is where everyone started to learn who Tony DeAngelo was, but for all the wrong reasons. DeAngelo was one of the top players coming into the NHL Draft in 2014. He led all OHL defensemen in points in 2013-2014 with 71. He was a top 20 pick in the draft, being selected 19th overall by the Tampa Bay Lightning. Seems like a great prospect to take a swing on right?
Well, he did display some character issues while with the Sting. In 2014, DeAngelo was suspended not once but twice during the season for violating the league’s harassment, abuse and diversity policy. One of those times he was directing the language to a TEAMMATE. Kind of a red flag, no? The Lightning took a chance on him anyways and he continued his OHL career.
Post-Draft: OHL, AHL, & Arizona Coyotes
Tony DeAngelo’s start to his professional career was just the first step in introducing the hockey world to “The Tony DeAngelo Experience.” DeAngelo, talent-wise, was regarded as one of the best defensive prospects in the league at this point. But after just one season with the Syracuse Crunch, Lightning GM Steve Yzerman traded him to Arizona for just a second-round pick. Strange, right? Well, DeAngelo was given two 10-minute game misconduct penalties in a December 7th match against the Albany Devils, first for conduct against a player, and then for commentary against a referee. The rest of the season, he was a -18, which was tied for the 23rd worst in the entire AHL, had 84 penalty minutes, and was a healthy scratch EIGHT TIMES due to attitude issues.
Many would say Yzerman dodged a major bullet, and they would be right, as DeAngelo kept having issues even after the trade. While with the Tucson Roadrunners, DeAngelo started hot on offense yet again, scoring 16 points in 25 games. That was good enough to be called up to see what he could do when Michael Stone went down with an injury. After scoring a goal in his first game as a ‘Yote, DeAngelo found himself in the news again. This time he was being suspended three games for physical abuse of an official. The Coyotes were a competitive team at that point, so in the summer of 2017, DeAngelo and the seventh overall pick were shipped to the Rangers in a trade revolving around Derek Stepan and Antti Raanta. This move to the Big Apple is when DeAngelo really started to become a bigger player (and problem) in the league.
New York Rangers
This stint with the Rangers is where hockey fans REALLY learned about who DeAngelo was. After his first two seasons bouncing between the NHL and AHL, DeAngelo exploded in the 2019-2020 season, scoring 53 points in 68 games in the shortened season due to COVID. DeAngelo then got walked by Sebastian Aho in game three of the bubble play-in tournament with less than 10 minutes remaining in the game. That goal put the Canes up 3-1, and Carolina would eventually win the series in three games. DeAngelo’s defensive breakdown was the nail in the coffin for the Rangers’ season, and he was headed to restricted free agency.
Somewhere between the end of the bubble playoffs and the start of the 2021 season, DeAngelo and Rangers fan @ImmortalLou30 had a back and forth on Twitter. The spat started with the Lou responding to a snarky comment that DeAngelo tagged Lou in. The ensuing thread basically had DeAngelo calling out Lou to fight him outside MSG after a game. Not a great look for a player already riddled with previous issues of altercations.
That very same offseason, DeAngelo took the Rangers to arbitration. He cashed in, and his big season in 2019-2020 netted him a two-year, $9.6M deal with the Rangers, who were quickly becoming a team with a bright future. That future, sadly, would not involve DeAngelo.
At the beginning of the 2021 season, DeAngelo was benched for game #2 after taking a bad unsportsmanlike penalty in the first game of the season. Then head coach David Quinn told DeAngelo that if he had any more bad behavioral incidents, he would be placed on waivers. A couple days later, DeAngelo was placed on waivers. DeAngelo just came off a fantastic season and signed a two-year deal; what could the incident have been that caused the Rangers do this? Well, DeAngelo had gotten into an altercation with then goalie Alexandar Georgiev, resulting in the goaltender punching DeAngelo in the face. For the rest of the season, the Rangers kept DeAngelo on their practice squad on paper only, as he was kept away from the team for the rest of the year. The Rangers continued all season to try and find a trade partner that would take DeAngelo, but could not find one.
The following summer he was bought out, ending his Rangers career for good. He ended up signing a one-year deal with the Carolina Hurricanes, who had just lost star defenseman Dougie Hamilton in free agency and needed a replacement.
Carolina Hurricanes
After signing his deal, DeAngelo once again had an offensive explosion to start the season. He scored eight points in his first seven games, and basically kept his head down and stayed out of the news all season. After the way his 2021 season with the Rangers ended, one could only assume he did not want to cause drama and cash in the following offseason. After another defeat in the playoffs, the Hurricanes traded his signing rights to the Flyers, and he signed a two-year deal worth $10M. However, this season DeAngelo has once again found himself in the center of drama.
Philadelphia Flyers
With everything that had gone wrong with Philadelphia the two seasons prior to the 2022-2023 season, the Flyers fanbase was already at a fever pitch, looking for their next person to blame or project their anger at. With the problems in DeAngelo’s past (not even including his political views, because I am NOT touching that with a 40-foot pole), the Flyers fanbase already disliked DeAngelo before he had played a game in the Orange and Black.
The season started again with DeAngelo coming out hot on offense, tallying five points in his first four games. As the season went on, his offensive output sputtered, and his defensive game was put on full display for fans to see. It got to the point where coach John Tortorella benched DeAngelo for a game as a healthy scratch. He later missed more games after. The Flyers said that DeAngelo had missed all those games regarding a family emergency, even though Tortorella told the media before it was a healthy scratch situation.
Although his play had been struggling during the season, DeAngelo had not had any on/off ice problems all season, until recently. DeAngelo came out hot on social media, picking fights with Flyers fans in the comment section of the Flyers Nation Instagram account. The post he was commenting under was in regard to fans voicing displeasure with General Manager Chuck Fletcher. It got to the point where DeAngelo started coming at the blog itself.
In the very next game that was played after these Instagram altercations, DeAngelo was given five and a game for spearing Lightning forward Corey Perry in the “nether region.” DeAngelo has been given a two-game suspension for his actions as Flyers fans are at a boiling point. Bad production on ice from DeAngelo, along with picking fights with the fanbase on social media, AND dirty cheap shots at opposing players isn’t a recipe to be liked anywhere, especially Philadelphia.
We will see what the future holds with DeAngelo and the Flyers, as there were rumors the Hurricanes were looking to make a move for him at the deadline last week. Will he be back to finish the length of his contract, or will he be moved this offseason after a disappointing 2022-2023 campaign?
Tune in to find out on the next installment of “The Tony DeAngelo Experience.”
