Hurricanes move on from Tony DeAngelo after just one year

This summer is going to be interesting in its current situation. With the Hurricanes having 20 million in cap space and a lot of holes to fill, there are decisions to be made. This isn’t to be outdone by last year when the Hurricanes changed half of their blueline, both netminders, and flushed out their forward core nicely to help support their high-end players.

However, the most polarizing addition last summer was easily defenseman Tony DeAngelo who was bought out after a fight with a goalie on the team after DeAngelo made comments about the goalie’s ability to stop shots being lackluster. Passionate, but uncontrolled, DeAngelo was a high-risk signing with a lot of reward potential. His time in Carolina did not disappoint this year.

In his 65 regular-season games, DeAngelo recorded 51 points in spite of tearing a core muscle in early February, leading to questions about his availability in the month leading up to the NHL’s trade deadline. His fantastic regular season would continue into the playoffs as he had 8 points in the first round against Boston. However, the Sewell, New Jersey native just couldn’t produce against his old team as the Canes fell to the Rangers.

With the Canes’ season concluded, the question with DeAngelo had become how much is the raise going to be. His 1×1 deal was way too good to be brought forward, as, by the end of the year, the former disgraced Ranger had won a lot of people over with his on-ice performances. Carolina wanted to run the team back, but DeAngelo was one of the big issues here. His raise was going to hurt the ability to bring everyone back.

In the end, it proved impossible as the Canes shipped him out to Philadelphia alongside a 7th in the 2022 NHL entry draft for a 4th in the 2022 NHL entry draft, a 3rd in the 2023 NHL entry draft, and a 2nd in the 2024 NHL entry draft. DeAngelo promptly signed a 2-year, 5 million dollar deal with the Flyers and it has left a lot of questions in the fan base. Could the Canes have matched that?

Simply, yes. However, I doubt that this is the only move the Canes are working on. Carolina is an organization known for being particularly clever with what they do in terms of finding under-the-radar players to slot in and fill a role on the team. Waddell has had time to make some decisions so look for the Canes to do something unexpected in the upcoming days here.

Question for Cardiac Cane readers: What did you make of DeAngelo’s time in Raleigh?