2021 NHL regular season thread

My night is made

 

My night was made, too.

 

There are so many rumors surrounding the Tony DeAngelo thing, and I wish I knew what is true.

DeAngelo's past -- racist comments, immature incidents in juniors, acting out a lot -- always made him a ticking time bomb. David Quinn disciplined him last year for "maturity issues," but they did a good job of keeping the details in house, so you never found out just how much of a shit he was, even if it wasn't hard to guess.

I was hoping they would trade him last year or during the offseason while his value was as high as it was ever going to be. He was fourth in the league in points among defensemen last year, and he is a really good on the power play. ... but he's not that good defensively. He was coming up on unrestricted free agency, and I was seeing a "sell high" scenario. Really hoping they would get more for him than I thought he's worth and not tie up salary in him. I think they may have tried to do the trade during the offseason, given how late the negotiations went, but they ended up being the ones to give him the contract he was lined up for.

After the Capitol riots, he deleted his twitter account when Trump was suspended and drew a lot of attention to himself. That was the first problem this season. Putting aside the politics, it's just not the distraction you want when it's your team. Then in one of the earlier games when the Rangers were down by a goal, he took a late penalty, argued with the ref and slammed the penalty box door getting 2 minutes added on top of it for unsportsmanlike conduct. Quinn sat him for the next 2 games. So that was where we were.

During the OT loss to Pittsburgh two days ago, him and Panarin and Zibanajad got stuck on the ice for a really long shift and were gassed, which led to Crosby's game winning goal. Right before the goal, there was miscommunication behind the net between him and Georgiev and it led to Pittsburgh keeping the puck.

The rumors are:
1) When they got off the ice, DeAngelo was talking shit to Georgiev, and they got into a fight outside the locker room. This is being pretty widely reported, so it is likely true.
2) There are rumors that Chris Kreider had had enough of DeAngelo at that point, and popped DeAngelo. I so hope that part is true. I would not want to bring on Chris Kreider's ire.
3) With DeAngelo's race problems in the past, I am also seeing things suggesting that his treatment of K'Andre Miller had been a problem. This part, I am really curious about -- whether they are rumors simply because it is DeAngelo and Miller is black,or whether there is something there. When Miller scored his first NHL goal a few games ago, Deangelo got the puck out of the net, and I am seeing things saying he kept it to screw with Miller. It's hard to imagine that -- someone would have intervened. But that is a rumor now. And now people are keying onto others things -- and if you look closely, when they announced all of the players prior to the Rangers first game and they skated out to mid ice, they were all lining up in a circle -- each player called lining up next to the prior guy called. They announced Miller after Deangelo, and unlike everyone else, Miller skated to the far side of the circle away from Deangelo. It actually seemed odd at the time, but I didn't dwell on it. Now there is speculation that there has been a problem there. I really hope not, but unfortunately, it wouldn't be surprising either. If there is ANYTHING to that speculation ... it makes how Miller has looked so far this year even more impressive. He's a rookie in the NHL dealing with a huge step up in talent, and he has been an amazing player so far. Has a calm presence on the ice and looks like he has been doing it for years. If he has been able to keep that kind of focus while dealing with an asshole / racist teammate, his transition is that much more impressive.

As a fan, this is just deflating. It's bad enough that I am watching game after game and they look like the more talented team and find a way to lose the game every night. I just want hockey -- even if it is shitty hockey. I didn't sign up for this kind of drama.

 

If you watch a lot of Rangers games on MSG Network, this is the funniest tweet ever: