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.
Nobody 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.