Well, it appears the saga of Tony DeAngelo as a Flyer is coming to an end. This afternoon, the Flyers announced that they have placed DeAngelo on waivers for the purpose of buying out the final year of his contract.
We have placed defenseman Tony DeAngelo on unconditional waivers.
— Philadelphia Flyers (@NHLFlyers) July 14, 2023
It was a difficult season for him – after being acquired from the Hurricanes and signed to a two-year, $10 million dollar contract, he failed to find his footing with his new team and find a way to replicate the success he had in his time in Carolina. He closed out the season as a healthy scratch after some manner of mystery conflict with John Tortorella, and it became pretty clear that the situation with DeAngelo in Philly had become untenable.
There was a brief bit of hope that the Flyers were going to be able to recoup some value for DeAngelo, as it was reported that he was to be sent back to Carolina, with salary retained, in exchange for a prospect, but the league would not approve that trade as he was to be flipped back to the team who traded him away – even though his newest contract was not signed with them – within the same calendar year and somehow that would have been cap circumvention. Alas.
The hope, then, was that we would all wait the few days until that one-year mark rolled around, and then the trade would be pushed through, but when the day came and went earlier this week with no trade made official, it was starting to look like the Hurricanes may have had a change of heart.
And so here we are. With DeAngelo being bought out, he will no longer be a Flyer, both sides get to walk away and get a fresh start, but the Flyers will still be stuck with $1.67 million of dead money on the books for the next two seasons. It is, all told, a disappointing end to a pretty wholly unsuccessful experiment.
