The Islanders signed unrestricted free agent defenseman Tony DeAngelo to a one-year deal on Friday, per a team announcement. He’ll join the club for the remainder of the 2024-25 season after recently being released by SKA St. Petersburg of the Kontinental Hockey League, assuming he clears return waivers. The deal is worth the prorated league minimum of $775K with no bonuses, Frank Seravalli of Daily Faceoff reports.
DeAngelo, 29, generated little interest on the open market last summer after completing a one-year, $1.675MM contract with the Hurricanes. He reportedly approached the Oilers about a professional tryout shortly before training camp, but the interest wasn’t mutual. DeAngelo then inked a one-year deal to head to Russia for the first time, a move that had been rumored for much of the latter half of the offseason.
The power-play specialist told Larry Brooks of the New York Post in early December that he wasn’t optimistic about an NHL return, but it appears he felt an opportunity may be materializing when SKA released him on Jan. 13. The New Jersey native lit up the KHL in his brief run overseas, posting 32 points and a +15 rating in 34 games on a St. Petersburg roster that includes longtime Capital and brief Hurricanes teammate Evgeny Kuznetsov and Canadiens top prospect Ivan Demidov.
DeAngelo’s move overseas means he must clear the little-used return waiver process. It’s sometimes resulted in claims, including the Coyotes nabbing Harri Säteri off waivers from the Maple Leafs in 2022 after Toronto attempted to bring him over to bolster their goaltending depth.
The Islanders were in need of blue-line help, especially on the right side. Star defender Noah Dobson sustained a right leg injury Monday against the Blue Jackets and is out week-to-week, while depth puck-mover Mike Reilly remains on long-term injured reserve after undergoing heart surgery in November.
DeAngelo provides a power-play replacement for the duo but certainly can’t replicate Dobson’s minutes at even strength. He returned to Carolina for his second stint with the Hurricanes last season after being bought out for the second time in his career by the Flyers. However, he was limited to 11 points in 31 games and averaged a paltry 14:20 per game while sitting in the press box for most of the back half of the campaign.
The 5’11” righty has 210 points in 371 career NHL games, 89 of which have come on the power play. His 0.57 points per game since debuting in the 2016-17 season ranks 30th among defenders with at least 100 games played during that timeframe.
Defensive deficiencies and constant unavailability due to external and internal suspensions have limited DeAngelo’s ceiling as a top-four option for most of his career. He most notably spent nearly all of the 2020-21 campaign with the Rangers on their taxi squad after an altercation with then-teammate Alexandar Georgiev and was bought out at season’s end, coming just one year after he finished 12th in Norris Trophy voting in 2019-20 with a career-best 53 points in 68 games.
A first-round pick by the Lightning in 2014, DeAngelo now joins his sixth NHL organization. He won’t be eligible to play tonight against the Flyers while on return waivers but could make his Isles debut against Carolina tomorrow if he clears.
The Islanders don’t have an open roster spot, but they won’t need one until DeAngelo’s waiver period ends. They’ll need to clear two places before the Carolina game, as winger Maxim Tsyplakov is also set to return from a three-game suspension for an illegal check to the head of Philadelphia center Ryan Poehling last week. That will likely involve returning forward Marc Gatcomb to AHL Bridgeport and moving Dobson to IR, but they have a few other options too.
DeAngelo will most likely suit up as a third-pairing option while handling top-unit power-play duties in Dobson’s absence. Veterans Ryan Pulock and Scott Mayfield will presumably continue to lock down the Isles’ top two pairings on the right side.