A saga that has lasted since February has come to a conclusion, with the Rangers officially buying the remaining of Tony DeAngelo’s contract, making him an unrestricted free agent able to sign with any team in the league.

DeAngelo’s fate has been well known for some time, and it was just a matter of when the deed would be done.  Yesterday the Ranger put him on uncondiitonal waivers, and when he cleared at 12:00pm Eastern today they quickly made it official.

Much has changed since DeAngelo had the confrontation with Alexandar Georgiev lead to his suspension from the team.  General Manager Jeff Gorton, who made the decision was fired along with President John Davidson and Head Coach David Quinn followed soon after.  Several of his team mates have also moved on, including Brendan Lemieux, Brett Howden, Colin Blackwell and most recently, Pavel Buchnevich.

The situation for DeAngelo has not changed however, and the emergence of other blueline options have put the Rangers in a position where they don’t have to make any difficult decisions.

The remaining $4.8M of his contract will be converted into $383K of dead cap space this year, and $833K next season.