Tony DeAngelo reportedly signs outside of the NHL

He may have denied it the first time, but it now appears to be official that controversial defenceman Tony DeAngelo will be playing outside of the NHL for the first time since 2017 when he played in the AHL. DeAngelo has reportedly signed a contract with SKA St. Petersburg of KHL, which is based in Russia.

DeAngelo, who recently recalled the now infamous fight he had with then New York Rangers teammate Alex Georgiev, will reportedly make the equivalent of $1 million USD, which will put him near the top 10 players in the KHL.

Tony DeAngelo denied reports that he had signed a contract in the KHL about a month ago saying he was focused on his NHL career. However, with NHL training camps officially under way, there hasn't been any talk of a team signing DeAngelo, even to a PTO.

The move makes a lot of sense for SKA. SKA St. Petersburg recently signed Evgeny Kuznetzov, adding him to a team already stacked with some of the best Russian players not skating in North America.

Frank Seravalli of Daily Faceoff recently called Tony DeAngelo a well-liked teammate, and added it was baffling he hadn't been signed by an NHL team before the start of training camps.

There were some rumours that the Edmonton Oilers had interest in at least bringing Tony DeAngelo to training camp, about a month ago. That never materialized.