DeAngelo vs. Georgiev: the defenseman gives his version of events

In 2021, Tony DeAngelo was driven out of New York. After an unknown incident, Jeff Gorton’s Rangers sent him home.

We never really knew what happened. There were rumors of a racist incident in connection with K’Andre Miller and there were many stories that came out in connection with it all.

And now the man himself, who appeared on the Morning Cuppa Hockey podcast, has opened up on the subject. It’s the first time we’ve heard him talk about it in this way.

Those listening to the podcast excerpt will notice first of all that the podcast host could hardly have defended him more. He practically apologized for asking him about it, and answered his own questions in defense of DeAngelo.

Between you and me, it was heavy to listen to. Let the player defend himself without putting words in his mouth.

Anyway. All that to say that unsurprisingly, after seeing the host mention that Miller had nothing to do with the story, the defender defended himself by saying that it was an altercation with Alexandar Georgiev that was at the root of it all.

He admits he was the first to criticize the goalkeeper and use swear words to tell him to play better during a match. And from there, it all went downhill.

If I hadn’t shouted that at Georgiev, he wouldn’t have come up to me and he wouldn’t have done anything. That’s a fact, so obviously I’m the instigator. – Tony DeAngelo

From there, the defenseman says that his goalie hit him with a headbutt and that he retaliated by hitting his goalie mask with a hockey stick. The two guys were separated.

That’s as far as it went that night,” he says. And it wasn’t the host who was going to challenge him on his wrongs in the story.

He says that, at the outset, the political climate and the start of the season meant that there was tension in the dressing room. It obviously didn’t help matters.

That’s when DeAngelo was told not to show up at the arena the day after the altercation, and the Rangers decided that was the end of him in New York. The club terminated his contract.

Of course, the podcast excerpt is only one side of the story.

And if the other side of the coin is that the Rangers are building around Georgiev and decided to release DeAngelo after retaliating to a hit, it’s probably because that was the straw that broke the camel’s back, right?

After all, with the talent he had and his new contract, releasing him was a big decision. And yet, within hours, he was gone and no one was looking back.

Since then, he’s been bouncing around the NHL, and now it looks like the KHL is waiting for him.