DeAngelo ejected after spearing Perry below belt

TAMPA, Fla. — Philadelphia Flyers defenseman Tony DeAngelo received a major penalty and a game misconduct on Tuesday night, after spearing Tampa Bay Lightning forward Corey Perry below the belt.

DeAngelo entered a players scrum in front of the Tampa Bay net, led with his stick and speared Perry, who immediately fell to the ice on his back.

Lightning teammates then surrounded DeAngelo and took him down to the ice in the slot before his Philadelphia linemates joined to defend him. He received a five-minute penalty, was ejected from the 5-2 loss and could face further discipline from the league on Wednesday.

“I haven’t seen the clip of what happened,” Philadelphia coach John Tortorella said during his postgame media availability. “Guys in the room said it was pretty obvious what happened.”

This is Tortorella’s first season coaching DeAngelo, who was with the Carolina Hurricanes last year.

“That’s the line you walk, as far as going over the edge,” Tortorella said. “I want him to have his personality, to have that competitiveness. A couple of guys I did sit, I wish a little of that would rub off on them. But again, I haven’t seen it, but I think he may have crossed the line.”

In the Flyers locker room after the game, DeAngelo told reporters that he intended to give Perry “a shot” but didn’t mean for it to land where it did.

“He tried to slash my stick out of my hands a second beforehand. He talks all game,” DeAngelo said. “I asked him to fight, he doesn’t want to fight. He’ll tell you he’s asked me to fight for years. I don’t say no. But wasn’t trying to give him a shot [where it landed]. Replay probably looks worse.”

DeAngelo, 27, has faced discipline before, and though he can flash offensive skill from the blue line and quarterback a power play’s top unit, he does often find himself in these types of situations.

“You have to be careful, and that’s easy to say,” Tortorella said. “But that’s a part of who Tony is, and I think he’s done a pretty good job this year in staying on that line and competing.”

DeAngelo, who has 10 goals and 34 points this season, signed with Carolina last season after the New York Rangers put him on waivers in 2021, following an incident between the defenseman and then-teammate Alexandar Georgiev after a home loss at Madison Square Garden.

“We obviously had an incident,” Jeff Gorton, then the general manager of the Rangers, said at the time. “We’ve dealt with it.”

Alex Killorn and Nikita Kucherov each had two goals and an assist as the Lightning snapped a five-game losing streak. Ross Colton also scored, Mikhail Sergachev had two assists and Andrei Vasilevskiy made 33 saves for the Lightning.

“I liked the response,” Lightning coach Jon Cooper said.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.