Tony DeAngelo looks through his window in St. Petersburg, Russia, and sees snow. Also his fate. At age 29, this American Hockey Player in Exile has accepted the fact his NHL career is likely over.
“I’m not very optimistic,” DeAngelo told me on Tuesday following a text exchange in which the one-time No. 77 inquired about the state of the Rangers. “Would I love to come back? I would absolutely love to come back and that’s my goal, but I’m not optimistic and I’m not going to let it affect my daily life.
“I’m here, these guys have taken care of me, they wanted me, so I’m playing hard, hopefully this team can win. They put a lot of stock in that, I want to focus on that.”
Again, “here” is Russia’s second largest city and the team DeAngelo is talking about is St. Petersburg SKA, which he is 23 games into the KHL season with following parts of eight seasons and 371 games in the NHL.
