Tony DeAngelo couldn’t get any Rangers to fight him, so he took a different route in Game 3.
The former Blueshirt instead speared Jacob Trouba — officially called a slash — in the third period with his Hurricanes chasing a 2-1 Ranger lead.
The Hurricanes ended up tying the game with a late-third period goal, but fell 3-2 in overtime after Artemi Panarin’s goal gave the Rangers a commanding 3-0 lead in the best-of-seven Eastern Conference semifinal series.
DeAngelo, who would be a healthy scratch if Brett Pesce was healthy, has made himself a center of attention in this series.
That is in part inevitable due to his status as a hated former Ranger now playing for the Hurricanes — DeAngelo parted Broadway on bad terms after an incident with then-netminder Alexandar Georgiev — but he has not done much to play it down.
The defenseman tried to fight K’Andre Miller in Tuesday’s Game 2 and during a commercial break in Game 3, dropped his gloves and stood near the Rangers bench hoping somebody would take him up on the challenge.
Ryan Lindgren (left) and Tony DeAngelo are separated by linesman James Tobias during the second period of the Rangers’ 3-2 Game 3 overtime win. Jason Szenes / New York PostNobody did, with Matt Rempe — the most likely player on the Rangers to drop the gloves — sitting out as a healthy scratch.
Instead, DeAngelo put his team, which has struggled to kill penalties all series, at a disadvantage during a crucial point in the game.
