DeAngelo (or, For Want of a Goal)
Look, we’ve been through this before.
July 28th, 2021 — the Carolina Hurricanes announce that they have signed persona non grata Tony DeAngelo to a one year, $1 million contract. DeAngelo, just a season removed from a 15 goal, 38 assist stat line that saw him garner a handful of Norris Trophy votes and earned him a two year, $9.6 million extension with the New York Rangers, was a free agent after being bought out by the Rangers, who exiled him to Elba after a locker room fight with teammate Alexandar Georgiev. The incident followed a benching earlier in the season for undisciplined play, and other questionable activity online that led to questions about him maturity, which have gone back to his time in junior hockey.
On the surface, it looked like a low risk investment with strong upside — if DeAngelo keeps himself out of trouble, the Canes have a scoring defenseman whose offense could make up for the loss of Dougie Hamilton, whose price as a free agent was too high for what the Canes were looking to spend. Worst case, the Canes bury him in the AHL (or as a healthy scratch), with minimal cost. What maybe wasn’t expected was the backlash the team received on social media, as DeAngelo’s previous reputation (including two suspensions in junior hockey for violating the league’s abuse/diversity policy, one for actions towards a teammate and comments on social media questioning the existence of COVID-19) led fans to question whether the team cared more about statistics than character.
The experiment worked, at least on the ice. DeAngelo replicated his production from the 2019–20 season with a 10 goal, 41 assist stat line. Usually paired with lockdown defenseman Jaccob Slavin, DeAngelo’s defensive weakness was generally hidden. I mean, they were still there, but they just weren’t as noticable.
From the “responsibility” side, DeAngelo generally kept his nose clean. No longer on Twitter (at least from a known account), DeAngelo’s social media was mainly kept to Instagram, where he did the typical IG professional sports player posts (action shots in uniform, walking to the arena in a suit, etc.) His conduct on the ice wasn’t immaculate (two misconducts during the season), but the reasoning could be frustration (both came at the end of blowouts), and the misconducts didn’t really affect the team (it’s not like he cross-checked a player in the jaw on the ice less than two minutes into a playoff game or anything.)
With the Canes gamble paying off, that led to a different issue. DeAngelo, fresh off his bargain one-year deal, would be an arbitration-eligible restricted free agent, and considering the numbers DeAngelo put up in his season with Carolina, an arbitration award could have seen his salary multiply by at least five. Reportedly the Canes front office discussed possible contract extensions, but in the end were unable to agree to terms, leading to the team trading his rights to Philadelphia with a 7th round pick in 2022 for a 4th round pick in 2022, a 3rd round pick in 2023, and a 2nd round pick in 2024. Philadelphia announced a two year extension for DeAngelo at the time of the trade at $5 million per season.
In Philadelphia, Flyers fans realized that Ivan Provorov was no Jaccob Slavin (wait… no, nevermind) and the defenseman had no clothes. Head coach John Tortorella tried DeAngelo in pairings with Provorov, Travis Sanheim, Nick Seeler, and eventually Left Bench. At one point in the season, the Canes directly benefitted from DeAngelo’s defensive lapses:
…which looked familiar:
DeAngelo looked poor overall, but at the same time, Tortorella chose to deploy him like a top line defenseman, logging the second most minutes per game on the team (22:04, only behind Ivan Provorov’s 23:01), which included penalty kill minutes. DeAngelo, who had been played to his strengths in New York and Carolina, did not fare well.
As one might expect, the relationship between DeAngelo and Tortorella became irreparable, basically ensuring that DeAngelo would not complete his second season in Philadelphia, whether the team chose to find a taker for him (with retained salary) or to just buy him out. A buyout would require the Flyers to pay DeAngelo $3,333,333 this season to not play for them, while that cap hit gets spread over two seasons — $1,666,667 in 2023–24 and $1,666,667 in 2024–25. A trade would mean that the Flyers would still pay DeAngelo $2,500,000 (assuming 50% retained — the maximum amount a single team can retain) and another team to pay the other $2,500,000. While the cap hit this season is larger, it’s only for this season, and the actual money spent is less. But, that involves actually finding a willing trade partner.
Enter the Carolina Hurricanes.
The Canes essentially replaced DeAngelo’s scoring last season with the acquisition of Brent Burns, who paired with Slavin on the top line and scored 61 points, including 23 on the power play. However, the Canes power play was still lackluster, ranking 20th in the league at 19.76%, which lead to the team acquiring defenseman Shayne Gostisbehere from Arizona at the deadline to quarterback the second power play unit. Gostisbehere contributed two goals and three assists on the power play in 23 regular season games with the team, then 2 power play assists in 15 playoff games as the team’s power play percentage dropped to 17.6%, good for 12th out of 16 playoff teams.
Gostisbehere won’t be back (an unrestricted free agent, he hasn’t ruled out re-signing but the market will probably price him out of a 3rd pairing budget), but the Canes apparently liked what they saw enough out of having a second power play quarterback that DeAngelo becomes a strong consideration, especially — again — at minimal financial risk. Acquiring DeAngelo would likely require minimal compensation going the other way (rumored to be an “unsigned prospect”), while only being on the hook for $2.5 million and one season in case it all goes south. While DeAngelo’s defensive woes are well documented, his offensive playmaking ability as a defenseman is still one of the best in the league.
Could there be a non-DeAngelo option available in free agency? I mean, yes — kind of. John Klingberg probably has the highest offensive upside of the free agent defensemen, but man — if your complaint about DeAngelo was about defense, do not look directly at John Klingberg. Pregnant women, the elderly, and children under 10 should avoid prolonged exposure to John Klingberg. If John Klingberg begins to smoke, get away immediately. Seek shelter and cover head.
So why not DeAngelo? Well, where to play him becomes the first question. DeAngelo succeeded with the Hurricanes because he was (mainly) anchored to Jaccob Slavin, which leaves two options in the team’s current setup— either break up the top Slavin/Burns line or pair DeAngelo with Jalen Chatfield on the third pairing, which — no offense to Chatfield — but he’s no Jaccob Slavin. DeAngelo (and Klingberg, for that matter), is a right-handed shot, which Chatfield is as well, meaning someone would be playing on their off side — not necessarily a good thing for trying to cover for deficiencies. What wouldn’t be shocking would be a Slavin/DeAngelo reunion, Burns sliding into a pairing with Brady Skjei, and Brett Pesce — with one year remaining on his contract and a brand new agent — playing somewhere else this fall.
OK, but will DeAngelo fix the second power play unit? That’s going to be a challenge. Concerns about the power play system aside, a unit that ran out Teuvo Teräväinen, Seth Jarvis, Jesperi Kotkaniemi, and Paul Stastny isn’t striking fear into the hearts of goaltenders across the NHL. Stastny is probably gone this offseason so there will be an opening, but who fills it? The difference between the first and second power play units is noticeable, and putting in a new quarterback isn’t going to make it miraculously produce. DeAngelo would only be part of the solution here, whether it be finding better shooters to put pucks in nets, or just improving what seem to be a very generic 1–3–1 power play setup.
But that’s not why we’re here, is it? The truth is — like it or not — Tony DeAngelo has become more of a symbol than a player. The DeAngelo that rose to fame (and infamy) was the Trump loving, COVID-denying, South Jersey stereotype. When he wasn’t putting up points on the Rangers, he was online trolling Twitter users, often using burner accounts that would get discovered and abandoned for new ones, only to see the cycle replicate.
While DeAngelo was mostly a ghost when he was in Carolina, likely realizing that a) he was on thin ice and this might be his last chance to be an NHL player and b) Rod Brind’Amour can murder people just by looking at them, DeAngelo’s symbolism began to spread through the Canes fandom. People who had never mentioned the Carolina Hurricanes or ice hockey in general were suddenly supporting the Canes and DeAngelo. Much like a red ballcap or “Let’s Go Brandon”, seeing someone wearing a Tony DeAngelo Canes jersey became that knowing nod that you may not know how much that person likes hockey, but you know a lot about how that person feels about political issues, and potentially, you personally.
And man, that didn’t feel great. It opened up this whole Pandora’s box of toxicity of fandom — of which there’s plenty of already — that just made it uncomfortable to be a Carolina Hurricanes fan. The issue isn’t even DeAngelo’s political leanings, because it’s a good bet that right wing politics are favored in NHL locker rooms and that your favorite player shares more ideals with Tony than with you. PROTIP: don’t look at your favorite player’s Twitter follows.
It just became this equivalency that because you wear that jersey or that t-shirt of the team that says “hey, this guy is a raging asshole and maybe racist but we’re not sure because the OHL won’t tell us but we still want him to be part of our select group” that you, by doing that, say this is OK and that you support this. This ended up being a polarizing struggle for some people that saw friendships essentially disappear because of the signing of a flawed (in more ways than one) defenseman.
But should it? It’s already weird to have these parasocial relationships with players that you like on sports teams you support just because you like something about them, whether it be their style of play or a cause they support or just the sound of their name. But to have actual relationships end because of the continued support of a team which, by association, enters you into a parasocial relationship with a player that you didn’t even want? That’s stupid.
And now Canes fans, who went through this stupidity for a season before seeing DeAngelo get shipped off to Philadelphia and got to spend a season feeling better about themselves while basking in schadenfreude as DeAngelo struggled, see that stupidity back on the horizon, all because a third line defenseman with a one year contract might increase scoring on the second unit power play.
It makes my head hurt just thinking about it, and that — probably more than anything else — is why I don’t want to see this (seemingly inevitable) transaction happen. A seemingly minor transaction is going to have some people rethinking their fandom. Again.
All for want of a goal.
