Islanders happy to have Tony DeAngelo in fold
For a first impression, you could do a whole lot worse than Tony DeAngelo did in his Islanders’ debut on Saturday night.
The New York Islanders recently debuted controversial blue liner Tony DeAngelo, and now he's opened up on his return to the NHL after a stint in the KHL in Russia.
Yes, his most recent former coach opined, it was surprising that it took controversial defenseman Tony DeAngelo, who made his Islanders debut on Saturday night, this long to find a new job in the NHL.
Last week we published a story about how KHL team SKA St. Petersburg had terminated the contract of former NHL defenseman Tony Angelo citing ‘family reasons’.DeAngelo himself even released a statement stating family reasons for leaving Russia and thanking both the team and its fans for his time in the country.
Tony DeAngelo’s timing could not have been much better. Just two weeks ago, the former New York Rangers, Carolina Hurricanes, and Philadelphia Flyers defenseman was playing with St. Petersburg in the Russian KHL.
Tony DeAngelo is signing with the Islanders for the rest of the 2024-25 season after leaving his Russian team earlier this month.
The two new defensemen seem to fit in like a glove in a very small sample size. Their ability to see the ice and help the transition games by skating with the puck or moving the puck up the ice with stretch passes fits head coach Patrick Roy 's M.O. to a tee. Both can play quarterback on the power play, a skill the Islanders desperately need.
The Islanders breathed life back into their season with a season’s best five-game winning streak to conclude their seven-game homestand. In an Eastern Conference filled with few, if any, dominant teams, they have every right to believe they can make a playoff push similar to last season when an 8-0-1 finish secured a berth.
The 5-10, 175-pound Perunovich logged 18:52 and was a plus-2 with two shots, earning enough of Roy’s trust to play key shifts in the third period. Tony DeAngelo, signed out of the KHL on Friday, played 22:11 with two blocked shots as he also earned his first point as an Islander with an assist in his second game.
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Ilya Sorokin made 30 saves, and Simon Holmstrom scored a goal and added two assists as the Isles used their biggest third period outburst since March 2023 to earn a 5-2 victory over the Colorado Avalanche before a crowd of 15,735 at UBS Arena.