He’s now the only NHL player to have had his contract bought out by 2 different teams.
According to Elliotte Friedman:
Some clarity here: Philadelphia put Tony DeAngelo on waivers to buy out his contract. It is not a termination. So, assuming he clears tomorrow, DeAngelo will be a free agent.
On the whole, the Canes finished up that campaign in the 2nd round of the postseason with a 4 games to 3 series loss to the Rangers.
If you look at his numbers, they definitely weren’t bad. 10G/41A/51P in 64 games. 13 points shy of a point per game for the Canes, after being bought out by the Rangers just 5 days before he signed with the Canes. But then that summer the Canes sent him packin’ to Philly for a 2024 2nd, 2023 3rd, & 2022 4th.
So, while researching this, it seems that I wasn’t going crazy, and there in fact was a trade in place for the Flyers to send him back to the Canes in this year’s free agency. The trade was DeAngelo for a prospect - with Philly retaining 50% of his salary. However, the NHL held up the trade due to CBA clause 50.5, which states:
Source
As the article states, if the Flyers didn’t retain any part of his salary, the trade would have gone through.