Flyers place Tony DeAngelo on waivers for purposes of buyout

The Tony DeAngelo experiment is officially over.

You know how the Philadelphia Flyers were supposed to trade defenseman Tony DeAngelo to the Carolina Hurricanes?

That won’t be happening now.

DeAngelo has been placed on unconditional waivers, the Flyers announced Friday. According to Frank Seravalli of Daily Faceoff, the Flyers plan to buy out the final year of DeAngelo’s contract.

DeAngelo was due to account for $5 million against the cap for the 2023-24 season. After the buyout, the Flyers will owe $1,666,667 in dead cap space for each of the next two seasons. They will also save a total of $1,666,667, per PuckPedia.

DeAngelo has now been bought out twice — once by the Flyers and once by the New York Rangers. According to CapFriendly, he is the first player in the NHL's salary cap era to be bought out multiple times.

Last month, it was reported the Flyers and Hurricanes were working on a trade that would have involved DeAngelo being shipped back to Carolina, where he spent the 2021-22 season. However, the trade was essentially nixed due to a clause in the NHL's collective bargaining agreement stating that a team cannot reacquire a player it traded away less than one year prior, especially if the reacquisition involves salary retention. The Flyers were reportedly set to retain 50% of DeAngelo’s salary in the deal.

The Flyers acquired DeAngelo from the Hurricanes last summer for three draft picks — a 2022 fourth-round pick, a 2023 third-round pick, and a 2024 second-round pick — before subsequently signing him to a two-year, $10 million contract.

On July 1, Hurricanes general manager Don Waddell told the media the DeAngelo deal was still in place to be completed.

So much for that.

DeAngelo posted 11 goals and 42 points in 70 games last season. He was also benched for the Flyers' final five games of the campaign.