Former New York Rangers defenseman Tony DeAngelo had a tumultuous ending to his four seasons on Broadway, making him a target of the Blueshirts Faithful. His returns to Madison Square Garden, such as during the Stanley Cup Playoffs with the Carolina Hurricanes last season, are often met with boos and expletive-laden chants.
DeAngelo addressed his turbulent downfall with the Rangers during the 2020-21 season and attempted to set the record straight when he appeared on the Morning Cuppa Hockey program on Wednesday.
Clearly, DeAngelo still isn’t pleased with how the Rangers handled the postgame physical altercation with goalie Alexandar Georgiev. However, the 28-year-old acknowledges his own role and fault in the incident.
“It was just, to me, one of those situations where if I would’ve done the right thing from the start, from the beginning of training camp, none of that probably would have happened. But it did,” said a reflective DeAngelo. “The only part I regret is what happened after — how out of control it got — that we weren’t able to get ahead of it in a quicker way where people could’ve got to the truth.”
The incident occurred on Jan. 30, 2021, in the season that started late due to the coronavirus pandemic. DeAngelo and Georgiev had a miscommunication about who should play the puck in overtime against the Pittsburgh Penguins. Shortly afterward, Sidney Crosby scored the game-winning goal in a 5-4 Rangers loss. As they headed back to the dressing room at The Garden, DeAngelo and Georgiev exchanged words before things got physical.
“Obviously there’s way more to it than just the incident with ‘Georgie’ at the end of the year,” DeAngelo explained. “Rewind a little bit; that was during the election — President transition — I had gotten in some trouble about some questionable tweets I made that offended some people, offended season ticket holders, all that stuff which, once again, totally understood.”
That was followed by a season-opening loss to the New York Islanders, where DeAngelo took what he perceived to be a weak holding penalty on Mat Barzal and slammed the door of the penalty box, earning an extra two minutes of penalty time, much to the displeasure of coach David Quinn.
“‘Quinnie’ and I disagreed about it. I wound up sitting the next two games, so the season started out a little bit rocky, unfortunately, and that was due to my fault,” DeAngelo admitted. “I wasn’t handling that very well at the time.”
DeAngelo returned to the lineup, but his outburst against Georgiev two weeks later proved to be the final straw. He only played six games that season for the Rangers after being placed on waivers and going unclaimed following that Penguins game.
“You fast forward to the Georgie incident, which was probably the least worrisome incident out of all of them, but I guess just the icing on the cake.”
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