Tony DeAngelo: The Carolina Hurricanes’ Controversial Star!

By Tom Ray

When you see the episode of Tony DeAngelo interviewing his mother on “Hot Takes” while he was with the New York Rangers, you just gotta love Tony D. But you know, with Tony DeAngelo, that’s not always been the case. In fact, on several occasions, people hated Tony DeAngelo. Tony has been one of the most polarizing figures in all of sport, for sure. And you know, with Tony, it’s clearly a love-hate relationship. The Carolina Hurricanes are struggling right now, and their defensive core has been part of the problem.

Dmitry Orlov, a prize free agent, was brought in to shore up the D. And, so was Tony. It hasn’t gone that well for them. And once again, folks are very concerned about Tony DeAngelo.

So, I thought I’d take a look at Tony’s history, some of his accomplishments, what people think about him. And then, is he a guy that can make a difference for the Hurricanes? You know, Tony played junior hockey in the Ontario Hockey League in Canada, and had an outstanding junior career.

His draft year, 2014, Tony had 71 points in just 51 games. And that was good enough for him to be drafted 19th overall in the first round, at the June draft. The following year, Tony put it all together. He had an outstanding season. We’ll Again, starting the year with Sarnia Sting and then moving off to the Sioux Greyhound in the Ontario League, Tony had 89 points in just 55 games.

That was good enough for him to be a first All Star and also to win the Max Kaminsky Award as top defenceman in the Ontario League. He also went on to win the National Award as top defenceman in Canadian Junior Hockey. An outstanding performance by Tony and he was in good company. He beat out Shea Theodore for the award and previous winners included Dougie Hamilton, a former Hurricane. So, Tony was off and running and moving off to his pro opportunity with the Tampa Bay Lightning. Tony’s first year pro was with the Syracuse farm team of the Tampa Bay Lightning and he had some challenges. Again, there were some concerns with attitude issues and also Tony’s defensive play continued to plague him.

So the following summer, The Lightning had an opportunity to move Tony to the Arizona Coyotes and traded him for a second round pick, 37th overall, who turned out to be Libor Hajek. Now, that was just the beginning of moves for Tony. Tony was traded three times and his contract bought out twice in the a period of seven years.

That’s a lot of movement and you gotta ask a lot of questions about it. In any case, Tony was in Arizona and had an opportunity to really let his career take off. Unfortunately, Tony got into a bit of a skirmish with the referee his first season with the Arizona Coyotes and was suspended for several games. That was enough as far as the Coyotes were concerned. In the following year, they traded Tony along with their first overall pick, seventh in the draft, who turned out to be Lias Anderson off to the Rangers in exchange for Anti Raanta. and Derek Stepan. Stepan, is an ex-Cane & Raanta is currently with the Canes. Kind of interesting.

In any case, Tony had his chance to go to the Rangers. In his first season with the Rangers, again, mixed reaction. Some concerns about his work ethic. Some obvious concerns about his defensive play, and some concerns about his attitude. Nonetheless, the following season, Tony put it all together and had an outstanding year for the Rangers, leading their power play with 19 points and having a big season., 53 points in 68 games for Tony and an outstanding year for him, plus 12. In turn, it was a contract year for Tony. As a restricted free agent, he had arbitration rights. And the Rangers put together a deal that they thought made sense for them and for Tony at almost $5 million per year on a two-year deal.

Tony was off and running. At the same time, Adam Fox was joining the Rangers, so there were going to be some question about power play time for Tony. But, nonetheless, they wanted him locked up. The following season, at the start of the year though, things went south for Tony. Tony got into a skirmish with goaltender Alexander Georgiev. Apparently the Rangers had lost in overtime and Tony felt it was Georgiev’s fault. Alexander was not pleased with the comments from Tony and promptly punched him. A little bit of a skirmish turned into be a bad situation for Tony because the Ranger brass decided they’d had enough of his antics. And they decided Tony would not be a Ranger any longer. So, after just six games in that season, Tony was sent home. The Rangers tried to trade Tony, were unsuccessful in doing so, and ultimately had to buy out his contract.

The following summer, after Tony had sat out virtually a whole season, he was available as an unrestricted free agent. And the Hurricane situation was one where they had just lost Dougie Hamilton. So, they were looking for a powerplay quarterback primarily, and Tony’s name came up. Discussions took place with the Canes and Tony, and in particular, Tom Dundon, got involved. And after some serious discussion between those two, it was determined that Tony had mended his ways and was ready to go with the Hurricanes. So,a one-year deal was done with Tony. a prove-it deal at $1 million. And Tony did prove it, for sure. He had an outstanding season with the Canes and nodded 51 points in 61 games. Tony put up 20 points on the power play. So, he did exactly what was expected. And the more surprising thing for Tony was that he was plus 30, an incredible number considering his defensive challenges. This probably seems incredible, but working alongside of Hurricanes’ defensive stalwart, Jaccob Slavin for most of this season, you can understand that number. In any case, Tony had had a great year.

The Canes were keen to re-sign Tony, but unfortunately he had a chance to cash in. And CAP challenges meant the Canes just could not get it done. So the Hurricanes determined the best thing to do was to trade Tony, and that they did. The Canes, of course, in doing the trade did well. They got a 2022 fourth round pick which turned out to be Simon Forsmark who’s playing with Timra right now. in the SHL and doing well. He’s 6’2” and 200 lbs.. He’s a big defenseman, so he’s a guy that has potential. The 2023 third round pick was number 71 which they got in the deal, but they then parlayed that for numbers 94 and number 100. Number 94 turned out to be Jayden Perron, who’s tearing it up with North Dakota right now. And, I think has great potential. Selection 100 was Alexander Rykov, and he’s doing well with Traktor in the KHL. So, not a bad deal for the Hurricanes so far They then are also getting the 2024 second round pick. Not bad. So the Canes parlayed Tony DeAngelo from a $1 million initial prove-it contract into several draft picks.

And guess what? It gets even better. Tony went to the Flyers. And within a short period of time, John Tortorella, the coach of the Flyers, determined that Tony wasn’t all that they were expecting. In fact, Tony’s defensive challenges really started to get to Torts, and he and Tony did not see eye-to-eye on that.

By the end of the season, the Flyers had decided to part ways with Tony, and so he was going to be available in the open market once more. The Canes went back to the Flyers and said, okay, we want to do a deal with you. They wanted to bring Tony back for the ailing powerplay. They offered up collegiate prospect Massimo Rizzo and a seventh round draft pick. They were asking the Flyers to take some of Tony’s salary, $2. 5 million, to make the deal work. All looked good, but the NHL front office said, no deal. You can’t do it this soon after making the deal last year, sending Tony to the Flyers from the Hurricanes. In any case, the deal was not done. And Tony was still a Flyer. But, the Flyers decided there were other options. And in this case, they decided to buy out Tony’s contract and he would become an unrestricted free agent. So that’s what they did. Now, once he was free of the Flyers, the Hurricanes started discussions again. And this time they put the deal together, a $1. 75 million deal with Tony to come over and join the Hurricanes once more. So, it’s all great. The Canes got Tony for less than what they were going to pay for him and the Flyers no longer had to concern themselves with Tony DeAngelo. Now, one interesting thing was the Canes did ultimately do a deal with Philadelphia and sent Massimo Rizzo and the seventh round pick to the Flyers and they received the rights to David Kase, that’s Ondrej’s brother, and Kase, of course, is not going to be joining the Canes anytime soon.

So, a nice move by the Canes in putting together the deal to bring Tony home. So Tony, now a Hurricane, gets to play and drive the power play, which he does best, but this time a little bit different, working alongside newcomer Dimitri Orlov. So they’ve had some challenges and we’ll have to see how that plays out.

Something else I thought was interesting and worth mentioning was that when Tony was with the Rangers, he actually had a podcast going called “Watch Your Tone”. Tony liked to take on a lot of controversial topics. and certainly had his own ideas on them. He talked about politics, he talked about COVID, he talked about Donald Trump. He talked about a lot of things and sometimes not pleasing his followers. We’ve heard a lot of negative things about Tony. He’s been in a lot of different situations over the years that did not fare well for him. But you know, there’s some things about Tony that we should pay attention to on the positive side.

Tony’s had some great success in the NHL scoring wise. He’s had three seasons over 40 points. He’s been a plus player a number of times. He’s also had excellent success on the power play with three seasons, 19 or more points. So definitely has had some success in the NHL. And, that’s the reason that he’s certainly back with the Hurricanes to run the power play.

In addition, some folks have had some interesting things to say about Tony. A lot of folks like Tony, as you’ve probably seen. He’s a likable person for the most part. And, Mark Staal, who played alongside Tony in New York, when he went to Detroit, some folks were talking about Tony. Some racist comments that he might have made and Mark had some very clear comments to make and I think was very strong about his position on this and being a Staal, we want to listen to him. And he said, look, there’s never been any indication at all that Tony has racist tendencies. The guys here in Detroit are curious about him. Racist, I’m telling you, some of this stuff is just insane. So, he definitely was very clear about his position on Tony and I know they had a very strong relationship.

I think even more telling was the comments that have been made by Don Waddell, first in 2021, when the Canes signed Tony amidst a lot of controversy, a lot of Caniacs not happy, some threatening to cancel their season’s tickets, and a lot of discussion on the forums back in the day. But he said very clearly, “Look, we did our research into who this person is, beyond the perception of him. There’s no doubt these that made some mistakes. Everybody that has worked with him, the message was that they support this player.” So, very strong comments from Don Waddell back in 2021 and then to talk again about bringing him in 2023 again. Some controversy with Tony coming in. And his comments were pretty clear. “Tony is an elite offensive defenseman that has a great season in 21/22. He came in and did everything we asked him to do. Players like him, coach liked him.” So again, Don Waddell, a big booster of Tony’s and very positive things to say about him.

You know, Tony is, as I started off, he’s a love-hate relationship guy. When he’s playing the way he can play, and he’s being the person that he can be in a very positive way, he’s outstanding, and a great teammate, and a great person to have on your team, for sure. Now, when he gets into some of his emotional jags, and does some of the things that he shouldn’t do, and says some of the things he shouldn’t say, he’s not so popular. And, if his play is suffering, that’s not a good situation for Tony either. So, let’s hope he’s on the positive side this year, he’s a happy player and plays the way Tony DeAngelo can play. And, I think he can have a huge impact on the success of the Hurricanes.