Philadelphia Flyers defenseman Tony DeAngelo was ejected from Tuesday’s 5-2 loss to the Tampa Bay Lightning after kicking forward Corey Perry in the third period.
DeAngelo received a five-minute major for spearing and a game foul for the play. As you can see, the action drew a backlash from several Lightning players.
It will be interesting to see if the NHL has issued anything other than a fine for DeAngelo’s spear on Perry. For some reason, the NHL generally leaned toward fines over suspensions in past cases, such as when Alex Ovechkin launched Trent Frederic in 2021.
After the game, DeAngelo and Flyers head coach John Tortorella shared their thoughts on the incident.
Via Charlie O’Connor of The Athletic, DeAngelo admitted that he wanted to give Perry a “punching shot” but didn’t necessarily want it to be a spear below the belt. His quotes don’t give you the best impression that DeAngelo will argue for clemency.
“I was trying to give it a little chance. I wasn’t looking to go there,” he told reporters. “He tried to cut the stick out of my hands a second early. He talks the whole game. So, asked him to fight. He doesn’t want to fight.”
Tortorella admitted he didn’t see enough replays to fully weigh in, but still provided some interesting commentary, as you can see in O’Connor’s thread below. On the one hand, Torts said playfully, “the guys in the room said it was pretty obvious.” On the other, Torts tried to spin him around a bit by wanting some of DeAngelo’s teammates to share some of his advantage.
Judging by past history, it’s no shock that even DeAngelo’s teammates and coach are reluctant to give him the benefit of the doubt.
His days with Rangers ended in redemption and a lot of confusion as to what exactly happened between DeAngelo and his teammates such as K’Andre Miller, Chris Kreider and Alexandar Georgiev. Prior to being drafted (by the Tampa Bay Lightning, in fact), DeAngelo previously raised red flags with ugly incidents dating back to his OHL days, and began his time with the Flyers by denying that he is racist.
DeAngelo also received a three-game ban for “abuse of officials” in 2017.
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