Rangers’ Tony DeAngelo just learned the scary impact of this punch

RALEIGH, N.C. — This is the brutal irony of the situation, a product of the structure the NHL has set up.

Of course Tony DeAngelo didn’t want to seriously injure Kyle Okposo, but under league rules, he was allowed to punch him in the face. And that punch on Friday night in Buffalo, the one shot thrown by the Rangers defenseman that nailed the Sabres forward on the jaw and knocked him immediately to the ice, has now resulted in a concussion.

Okposo, the longtime Islander and a well-liked member of every team he’s been on, has a tortured history of head trauma. Most recently, he was hospitalized for over a month in the spring of 2017, hardly able to keep a grip on reality following a seemingly innocuous bump in practice.

It’s all something that now has to cross DeAngelo’s mind, even though everything he did was within the rule book — and came from the coveted place of camaraderie, standing up for teammate Mats Zuccarello after Okposo had hit him from behind into the boards.

“Stuff happens in hockey. The last thing I’m looking to do is see a guy get hurt,” DeAngelo told The Post here on Tuesday morning before his team’s game against the Hurricanes, with the Sabres having just announced Okposo’s injury an hour before and the Rangers 23-year-old blueliner a little bit shaken to hear the news.

“Obviously in a fight, things could happen to anybody,” DeAngelo said. “But you don’t want to see a guy get hurt, especially a guy that has a past of some head problems. I’m hoping he’s recovering real quick here, and it’s maybe some extra precaution or something and he’s fine.”

DeAngelo plays with a clear edge to his game, and he has gotten into three fights in 110 NHL games, 71 of those with the Rangers. He did have a temper when he was younger, getting suspended in the minor leagues, and was benched by David Quinn this season for what the coach dubbed “a maturity issue.”

But this was totally within the rules, probably appreciated by his teammates in the moment. And Okposo chose to engage in the fight, and just happened to be on the receiving end.

“You don’t want to see a guy get hurt,” DeAngelo said. “I mean, a fight’s a fight, it’s part of the game, it’s been that way forever. Hopefully he’s fine. But that part of my game is going to stay.”

Okposo started his NHL career after the Islanders drafted him with the No. 7-overall pick in the 2006 draft, making his pro debut in 2007-08 after two years at the University of Minnesota, near his hometown of St. Paul. He played nine seasons with the Islanders, and went through some serious injury issues, including a detached retina in his left eye during the 2014-15 season that needed emergency surgery and almost ended his career.

He left to sign a big free-agent deal with the Sabres in the summer of a 2016, and the seven-year, $42 million contract set his family up for life. Yet it hasn’t been easy.

After that hit in practice on March 21, 2017, Okposo went through a manic phase, apparently unleashing the memories of some traumatic experience from his childhood that he would not disclose. As reported by The Athletic just before this season, Okposo was contemplating hurting himself, and once in the hospital, he would wake up and in a panic and reach for the wedding rings of his wife, Danielle, just to get a sense of familiarity.

In July of 2017, he wrote a piece for the Sabres’ website, thanking the fans for their support.

“Dealing with an injury like this can change your perspective on life,” he wrote. “It makes you evaluate what’s truly important.”

It seemed like Okposo was doing well getting over it, having played in all of the Sabres first 57 games of the season while putting up 10 goals and 22 points. But then he hit Zuccarello, and then DeAngelo hit him with a straight right hand, and now who knows what is going to happen to the 30-year-old Okposo.

“Listen, that could happen to me, too, when you’re fighting,” DeAngelo said. “It’s nothing you want to see.”