Tony DeAngelo’s reputation around the NHL is poor but only one of his recent meltdowns led to a team immediately cutting him loose. The New York Rangers placed DeAngelo on waivers in 2021 after he got into a physical altercation with teammate Alexandar Georgiev post a loss to the Pittsburgh Penguins.
DeAngelo gave his side of the fight for the first time while appearing on Daily Faceoff’s Morning Cuppa Hockey on Wednesday. He admitted that he went at Georgiev verbally which started the conflict.
“Coming down the tunnel, I yelled at Georgi, ‘Make a f—-ing save’,” DeAngelo said. “So, if I didn’t yell at Georgi, Georgi wasn’t gonna turn around and try to do anything. That’s a fact. Obviously, I started it. I wasn’t thinking what happened next was gonna happen, that was a surprise to me.”
DeAngelo says Georgiev then head-butted him, goalie mask to player visor, which bloodied the defenseman. He retaliated by hitting the netminder in the helmet with his stick before teammates quickly separated the two.
Despite the fight going no further than the helmeted blows, DeAngelo and Georgiev were requested not to go to the team’s practice facility the next day. DeAngelo was then placed on waivers by New York. DeAngelo found out about being waived through a tweet from hockey insider Elliotte Friedman.
“Georgi shouldn’t be blamed,” DeAngelo said. “Because listen, if somebody said something to me coming out of the tunnel after a tough game, I don’t know what I would have done. I never blamed him, that was just heat of the moment.
“The season started off so rocky, a lot of it being my fault. “[The fight] was probably just icing on the cake.”
DeAngelo, who had received Norris Trophy consideration the season before, was eventually placed on unconditional waivers the following offseason, allowing the Rangers to buy out the remainder of his contract. Five days later, the Carolina Hurricanes signed him to a one-year, $1 million contract.
Carolina traded DeAngelo to the Philadelphia Flyers almost exactly a year later and Philadelphia made him the first player in NHL history to be bought out more than once a year after that. He then re-signed with Carolina for one year where he played last season and is now an unrestricted free agent with a potential move to the KHL on the horizon.
Georgiev stayed with the Rangers through the 2021-22 season before being traded to the Colorado Avalanche for multiple draft picks. The Bulgarian-born goalie has been Colorado’s starting netminder for the past two years, getting into 125 games.
