All the elements were in line for a heated Flyers-Lightning game Tuesday night, and Tony DeAngelo unsurprisingly was the match to light the fire.
When you take two teams going in completely opposite directions in a late-season game, there’s always the possibility for shenanigans. That possibiity further increases when you add in crap-stirrers like Philadelphia’s DeAngelo and Tampa Bay’s Corey Perry. So, it’s really not entirely surprising that at some point in the third period Tuesday night, there was a heaping pile of professional hockey players trying to maim each other.
DeAngelo was in the middle of it all, and it could end up costing him. After a stoppage late in the third period in front of the Tampa Bay net, DeAngelo skated around the outside of a scrum and promptly speared Perry right in the groin. As the Lightning veteran fell to the ice, understandably, the rest of his teammates immediately jumped DeAngelo, leading to a bit of a brouhaha.
When the dust settled, DeAngelo was the only player disciplined. His antics earned him five minutes for spearing plus an extra 10 and a game misconduct. It won’t end there, either. The NHL Department of Player Safety wasted no time announcing DeAngelo will have a hearing Wednesday for the spearing incident.
“I was trying to give him a little shot,” DeAngelo tried to explain to reporters after the game, as transcribed by the Philly Inquirer’s Olivia Reiner. “I wasn’t looking for it to go there. He tried to slash my stick out of my hands the second beforehand.”
We can probably all agree that escalating a stick slash to a shot to the family jewels isn’t exactly an eye for an eye, but DeAngelo wasn’t done there.
“He talks all game. So, asked him to fight. Doesn’t want to fight. He’ll tell you that he’s asked me to fight for years. I don’t say no,” DeAngelo continued. “So there’s not much of an argument there.”
Eventually, DeAngelo delivered the punchline: “Replay probably looks a bit worse than it was meant to be. But it is what it is.”
DeAngelo is right about one thing: The replay certainly doesn’t look good, and the NHL seemingly agrees.
