Photo Courtesy of the Idaho Steelheads
The Allen Americans, along with Head Coach and GM Steve Martinson, announced Thursday the signing of defensemen Matt Register and Kevin Spinozzi for the 2025-26 season.
Register spent the past three seasons with the Idaho Steelheads. This will be a fourth return to Allen for him, as he joined the Americans as a rookie in 2011-12, then back in 2015-16, where he raised the Kelly Cup in the first of back-to-back ECHL titles for the Americans.
Register also played for the Americans in the 2019-20 season, as well as 2020-21. He won three Kelly Cup Championships in a row in 2016, 2017, and 2018.
The Americans also signed the highly-skilled Spinozzi, who joins the club after playing four years in France.
The 6-foot-2, 200-pound blueliner averaged nearly 30 points per season during his time in Europe. He has 21 games of pro hockey experience in the American Hockey League with the Wilkes-Barre/Scranton Penguins. He also played with Wheeling, Toledo, and Rapid City in the ECHL.
Martinson draws a comparison of Register’s game to Brent Burns.
“He led the league in scoring for Defensemen while with the Steelheads, but was also Idaho’s top plus/minus player three years running,” Martinson explained. “With Idaho, he had 173 points while being nearly a plus 100. Last year his plus 24, for a non-playoff team, is literally unheard of. Reggie (Matt Register) will be a player coach for us until he’s ready to retire and then will seamlessly step behind our bench.”
The addition of Spinozzi gives the Americans the one-two punch that Register and Les Lancaster had a few years ago, according to Martinson.
“He has a bomb from the point but is also tough, and can play a hard game against the league’s top players,” Martinson noted. “These two give us proven scoring that will be a lot of fun to watch.”
The Americans open the regular season on the road in Wichita against the Thunder on Saturday, Oct. 18, with the home opener less than a week later, on Friday, Oct. 24 when the Kansas City Mavericks visit Allen.