DeAngelo won’t play for Rangers again

Tony DeAngelo has played his final game for the New York Rangers despite going unclaimed on waivers, after a warning from the organization about behaviour and an undisclosed “incident” he was involved in, general manager Jeff Gorton said Monday.

The Rangers assigned DeAngelo to their taxi squad, but the 25-year-old defenceman won’t be around the team. “We told a player that ‘Enough is enough, let’s move on,’ ” Gorton said. “I feel like this is the necessary move that we had to make.”

The Rangers just re-signed DeAngelo to a two-year, $9.6 million (U.S.) contract in October. They’re not contemplating any way to void that contract, but instead are “talking about finding him another place to play and letting him move on with his career,” Gorton said.

An NHL team is not allowed to buy out a player during the season. One option would be retaining a portion of his salary in a trade.

Gorton believed DeAngelo “wasn’t able to move on from” being a healthy scratch earlier this season. Coach David Quinn benched DeAngelo for a bad penalty in the season opener. He was also told by Gorton that if there were any more issues, “we’re going to move on.”

DeAngelo was on the ice for four goals against in an overtime loss Saturday against Pittsburgh and was reportedly involved in a post-game “altercation” outside the locker room with goaltender Alexandar Georgiev.

Team president John Davidson said DeAngelo’s social media presence, which include quitting Twitter when the company permanently suspended former president Donald Trump’s account, was not the reason for the Rangers moving on.