Philadelphia Flyers trade for Tony DeAngelo: Everything you need to know

Day 1 of the NHL Draft for the Philadelphia Flyers passed without much in the way of surprise or controversy.

General manager Chuck Fletcher didn’t trade the No. 5 pick. He selected Cutter Gauthier, who was long thought to be one of their top choices due to his extremely high potential ceiling as a power forward. Fletcher and the Flyers were apparently saving the real controversy for Day 2.

Just before the second round began Friday, rumors began to circulate that the Flyers were working on a trade with Carolina. Soon after, it was confirmed that they had indeed sent three picks to the Hurricanes — a 2024 second-round pick, a 2023 third-rounder and a 2022 fourth-round pick for defenseman Tony DeAngelo and a 2022 seventh-round pick.

DeAngelo, a local product from Sewell, N.J., has a checkered past, which involves stops in four separate organizations and an ignominious exit from the New York Rangers in 2021. He fell out of favor with the Rangers due to his active, occasionally inflammatory presence on social media, undisciplined play and then a physical confrontation with teammate Alexandar Georgiev. After being bought out by the Rangers in the summer of 2021, the Hurricanes signed him to a one-year, $1 million contract, and he rewarded them with 51 points in 64 games. But negotiations between DeAngelo’s camp and Carolina GM Don Waddell hit a standstill this summer — the Hurricanes valued him more in the sub-$4 million cap hit range, while DeAngelo’s camp was demanding $5 million per year — and the team began shopping him. Fletcher and the Flyers proved to be the ones who bit.

“We’ve been speaking with a lot of teams, looking for a right-shot defenseman,” Fletcher said Friday as the draft ended. “Last year we felt we really struggled to move the puck, we struggled on the power play, we spent too much time in (the) defensive zone. Tony is a player with very good offensive talent, he moves the puck well, he can run the power play. He’s had a couple of 50-point seasons. We think not only will he produce offensively but he’ll allow some of our forwards to have a better chance to get to their games offensively, as well.”

Let’s dive into the player, the person, what this move says about the Flyers’ offseason plan and DeAngelo’s fit in Philadelphia.

A pure offensive defenseman, for better or worse

DeAngelo is a high-scoring offensive defenseman, though it took some time for him to establish himself as a clear-cut NHLer after being taken in the first round of the draft in 2014. After failing to stick with Tampa Bay and Arizona, he delivered his breakout campaign in 2019-20 for the Rangers, scoring 53 points in 68 games. In fact, over his last two full seasons (2019-20 and 2021-22), he’s scored at a 65-point pace over 82 games, which would have put him in the top-10 leaguewide among blueliners last season.

A big reason for that is his undeniable power play prowess. DeAngelo will almost certainly slot right into PP1 for the Flyers, and for good reason. He finished with 20 power play points for Carolina last season and since 2019-20, his PP Points per 60 minutes rate of 5.64 ranks 10th in the NHL among defensemen. Over that same span, the Flyers have trotted out Keith Yandle (4.37 PP Points/60), Shayne Gostisbehere (4.32) and Ivan Provorov in that role. DeAngelo is a clear upgrade over all of them, and for a team that finished with the league’s worst power play last season by a full percentage point (12.6 percent), it makes sense that such an upgrade would be prioritized. The power play was brutal in Philadelphia in 2021-22 and it needed fixing. DeAngelo will almost certainly help in that regard.

He also can be expected, however, to give back a not-insignificant portion of that value via the defensive side of his game.

DeAngelo is basically a classic offense-only blueliner, at least by the numbers. When looking at his impact on his teammates at five-on-five, DeAngelo generally grades out as about a break-even net impact defenseman, so on the whole, he’s not a liability on the ice. But how he gets to that point paints about as accurate of a picture as you’re going to get of DeAngelo. He’s great offensively but awful defensively.

All metrics courtesy of Evolving-Hockey and their RAPM model. Even strength impacts only.

DeAngelo is going to help his team score goals. He’s also going to help the other team score goals. So in the end, at least at even strength, he’s likely going to about break even over large samples. Add in his unquestioned power play value, and it’s the profile of a good player. Not a great one, though, because his deficiencies without the puck make such a designation impossible.

“The defense side, we believe Tony’s improved in that part of the game, but we’re not expecting him to come in and be an elite defender,” Fletcher said. “We wanted to get him so we don’t have to defend as much.”

Time will tell if that proves to be the case.

DeAngelo’s checkered past

An attentive reader may have noticed that in the above chart, the 2020-21 season is conspicuously absent. That’s not because DeAngelo failed to appear in any games whatsoever — he did dress for six games while on the Rangers that season. But those were the only games he would play before the Rangers chose to send him home and cut ties with the defenseman.

This brings us to the other side of DeAngelo — his track record of misdeeds and controversial statements.

The incident that ended his 2020-21 season was a significant one. After a Rangers loss, DeAngelo got into a confrontation with teammate and backup goalie Alexandar Georgiev, who ultimately punched DeAngelo. The organization — which already had put DeAngelo on notice that his behavior was approaching the point of being unacceptable — responded by placing DeAngelo on waivers, and after he went unclaimed, they chose to sit him out for the rest of the season, ultimately buying out his contract that summer. For an organization to take that drastic of a step against a player who scored 53 points in 68 games the previous season (and signed a $9.6 million contract extension the previous October) speaks to the distraction he had ultimately become in New York.

This was far from the first time that DeAngelo ran afoul of his team or even league. In 2014, as a junior hockey player, he was suspended for eight games following a violation of the league’s Harassment and Abuse/Diversity Policy, which involved directing a racial slur toward a teammate. In addition, it was his second violation of the policy, which drove the extended nature of the suspension.

DeAngelo’s undisciplined play and temper have been a recurring problem for him as well. Both in the OHL and the NHL, he has been fined and suspended for physically accosting officials on numerous occasions, generally in the wake of post-whistle scrums. His lack of discipline in terms of avoiding costly penalties has also earned the ire of multiple coaches. In fact, it was an unnecessary unsportsmanlike conduct penalty in the season opener in 2020-21 that put him on thin ice with head coach David Quinn and the Rangers in the first place.

Then, there’s his social media history. While with the Rangers, DeAngelo didn’t shy away from expressing his very public support for former United States President Donald Trump, in the process expressing support via likes or tweets for Trump’s claims that the 2020 election had been stolen, criticizing supporters of Joe Biden for perceived COVID-19 hypocrisy in celebrating the election result and vowing to join the social media app Parler in the wake of Trump’s ban from Twitter. DeAngelo’s actions on social media generated significant public attention.

Since signing with the Hurricanes, however, DeAngelo has avoided social media political statements, choosing to stay mum on the topics. Fletcher said Friday that he expects that shift on DeAngelo’s part to persist.

“Yes. I think he’s made that decision, to focus his energy to playing on the ice and being a good teammate,” Fletcher said. “Toning down some of the rhetoric, toning down some of that activity. I intend to sit down with him over the next couple days and talk to him, and get to know him a lot better. But I don’t anticipate any issues.”

According to multiple sources close to the situation in Carolina, DeAngelo was well-liked in the Hurricanes’ dressing room during his one-season stint; the decision to trade him was more about contract demands than any dissatisfaction with him as a person. Kevin Hayes — a longtime friend of DeAngelo dating back to their time together on the Rangers — also publicly supported him in the aftermath of Friday’s trade, vouching for his quality as a teammate, something legitimately in question due to the Georgiev incident.

“Tony is one of the most loyal teammates I’ve ever played with,” Hayes said via text message. “He will have every guy in that locker room’s back.”

Still, uneventful tenure in Carolina aside, DeAngelo’s track record cannot be ignored. Purely from a hockey standpoint, his tendency toward undisciplined play is a viable concern. His past usage of slurs in tandem with the Georgiev incident speaks to legitimate concerns surrounding his character and his unabashed support of Trump is also surely going to rub some in the fan base the wrong way. Fletcher was directly asked what he would say to fans who might be uncomfortable with the acquisition purely on moral grounds.

“Well, you certainly have to appreciate their opinion,” Fletcher said. “He’s made some mistakes, and he’s apologized for them, he’s suffered consequences for them. Some of the mistakes earlier in his career, he hasn’t had any repeat offenses, so to speak. I think again, he’s maturing, from everything that we can gather. He’s working hard to be a better person, both on and off the ice.”

Why take the risk on DeAngelo? The Ellis factor

DeAngelo isn’t lacking for talent, even if he doesn’t qualify as a two-way force. But his off-ice persona — and that it has shown the propensity to bleed over into on-ice events — makes him a legitimate risk as an acquisition, particularly given the expected $5 million cap hit. Why would the Flyers choose to take the plunge with DeAngelo?

In large part, it boils down to Ryan Ellis’ status.

In May, both Ellis and Fletcher expressed confidence that a recovery plan for his “multi-layered pelvic issue” had been constructed, and that over the course of the summer, he would be pushing himself to be ready for training camp. Ellis specifically stated that he wanted to be back on the ice by mid-June, before ramping up his training dramatically in July. As recently as last week, however, Fletcher acknowledged that Ellis was not yet on the ice. On Friday, he made his most revealing statement yet regarding the legitimate worry that still exists surrounding Ellis’ ability to successfully return from his injury.

“Yeah, I mean, there’s been concern for a while,” Fletcher said. “He’s made progress. He very well could be ready early, but there’s certainly a chance that it could drive into the season. I do believe he’ll play again. I’ve always felt that. But the timing’s a little murkier, and frankly the focus is a little bit more on making sure he gets healthy and can get back.”

That’s not exactly a reassuring statement. And it certainly helps to explain why Fletcher prioritized the acquisition of a RHD, as DeAngelo is.

If Ellis was a lock to return for Game 1 in October, DeAngelo would almost certainly be a third-pair defenseman on the depth chart, behind Ellis and Rasmus Ristolainen. A $5 million cap hit — not to mention second-, third- and fourth-round picks — is a steep price for a third-pair blueliner and power play specialist and a very questionable allocation of cap resources. But if an organizational consensus is forming that Ellis is unlikely to be ready for 2022-23 — and that his return at all is also very much in question — then DeAngelo makes more sense as a player who would be used like a top-four blueliner on the right side.

“Really, until Ellis gets back, our only pure right shot at this point was Ristolainen. So we’re very thin on that side,” Fletcher said. “I just think Tony protects us.”

In addition, it’s difficult to understand how DeAngelo would even fit under the Flyers’ cap unless the expectation is that Ellis will likely begin the 2022-23 season on long-term injured reserve. Right now, the Flyers have $79.65 million allocated to a projected 18-man roster — that’s just $2.85 million under the $82.5 million cap ceiling, with contracts still needed for RFAs Morgan Frost, Owen Tippett and Zack MacEwen, in addition to a backup netminder. It would be impossible to fill all of those spots and stay cap compliant.

If Ellis is expected to be unavailable, however? Suddenly, the math can work, assuming he begins the season on LTIR. It would help explain why Fletcher felt like a high-profile gamble on a player destined to spark criticism was worth it.

Questions about the fit

DeAngelo very clearly provides power play value to his clubs and has graded out as a break-even play-driver as even strength for years. He even has three seasons that saw him produce over nine Goals Above Replacement for his clubs (2018-19, 2019-20 and 2021-22), placing him solidly in the top-50 among NHL blueliners in all three years.

But I question his fit with the Flyers for multiple reasons.

First, there’s his style of play, which can generously be called offense-focused. The Flyers just hired a coach in John Tortorella who will be striving to reinstitute structure and accountability to a club desperately lacking it, based on his initial news conference after taking the job.

“You need structure,” he said. “I think one of the most important attributes of a head coach is to find and teach the structure away from the puck.”

DeAngelo has struggled to consistently play with structure. And while Fletcher made sure to note that Tortorella was completely on board with the DeAngelo acquisition, it’s pretty easy to imagine a scenario where the two consistently butt heads and DeAngelo ends up a semi-regular healthy scratch due to foolish penalties and glaring defensive breakdowns.

Then, there’s simply the stylistic fit, particularly considering the defense corps as it stands. Ristolainen, despite his reputation as a physical defensive defenseman, has long graded out as one of the league’s worst at preventing scoring chance. Last season was no different. By the RAPM model, he ranked in the 15th percentile among NHL blueliners in xG prevention. Now, as the Ellis backup plan, the Flyers are adding yet another defensive liability, and they still lack the kind of high-end talent up front that would give them a chance to outscore their problems. If Ellis can’t return, this blue line corps has the potential to be disastrous defensively. If Ellis can return, DeAngelo’s $5 million cap hit will necessitate at least one current player to be removed from the roster to make everything fit.

DeAngelo is probably best served as a sheltered No. 4/5 defenseman on an NHL depth chart who can thrive on the power play. That’s more or less how Carolina viewed him during contract negotiations, pegging him more as a mid-$3 million cap hit player. Instead, the Flyers are likely to give him around $5 million per year, which either makes him an overpaid third-pair defenseman, or an Ellis replacement on the top pair (assuming they keep Sanheim and Ristolainen together) with serious defensive issues. Yes, DeAngelo did spend a significant amount of time next to Jaccob Slavin on the Hurricanes’ top pair in 2021-22, and that pair thrived, even if head coach Rod Brind’Amour did his best to still shelter DeAngelo when possible. But Provorov isn’t Slavin, particularly defensively. Giving DeAngelo top pair minutes seems like a serious risk, especially with Ristolainen right behind him on the depth chart. It’s just not an ideally structured blue line group.

And that’s not even getting into the character risks, which remain significant. In Carolina, DeAngelo was on a cheap “prove it” deal with every incentive to avoid rocking the boat; it very well could have been his last chance in the NHL. Now, he’s again a highly paid player with contract security.

It’s possible that he fits in Philadelphia just as he did in Carolina, but that’s not a guarantee. Maybe he rubs some teammates the wrong way. Perhaps he clashes with Tortorella. There are a number of unique variables, certainly including his very public political opinions, here that add to the risk factor.

The best defense of the DeAngelo trade is that it does fit with the organizational mandate toward bigger swings. DeAngelo is one of the league’s best offense generators from the back end and players with his kind of dynamic skill set don’t usually become available. This does feel like another “big swing” on the part of Fletcher.

But given the entire picture of the acquisition, this one seems more likely to end up as a strikeout than a home run.

(Photo: Len Redkoles / NHLI via Getty Images)