Non-hockey business aside...
Tony has NHL skill, but the year in Philadelphia seems to have done his confidence in, and the fact that he didn't play with Slavin. His first year here playing with Slavin he set the franchise record for points for a defenseman. Granted, he was poor defensively, but he was legit contributor on our top pairing. The next year, Burns came in and played a lot better defensively and scored even more points. Last year, he started on a pairing with Dmitry Orlov and it was a total, unmitigated disaster. Holy shit it was like watching 2010s Canes defense before Slavin/Pesce came over. They finally separated them and realized that Orlov played much better without TDA. TDA saw some time later in the season due to injuries and looked somewhat competent next to Brady Skjei. However, the offense wasn't there this year. If you need to be babysat by an elite partner, and you aren't proving at least 0.5 PPG offensively, you no longer belong in the bigs.
I hope he has a good year in the KHL and can make it back to the NHL. He has legit talent and makes amazing seam passes on the powerplay when he is on.