Steve Martinson Goes In-depth on the Allen Roster, The Team He is Trying to Build, Affiliation, and His "All-In" Defense

 

 The Allen Americans announced their ninth player for the 2025-26 roster on Tuesday with the addition of forward Brayden Watts, who led the team in scoring last season. Here is Allen's current roster.

Goalies

• #33 Marco Costantini

Defensemen

• #22 Anthony Costantini
• #43 Matt Register
• #44 Kevin Spinozzi 

Forwards

• #26 Spencer Asuchak
• #11 Thomas Caron 
• #7 Colton Hargrove
• #77 Brad Morrison 
• #92 Brayden Watts 

 

- With a big part of Allen's core group now announced, I had a chance to talk to Steve Martinson about how he sees all these pieces fitting together and the strengths of each player. Martinson is building a roster that can compete, regardless of how much help comes from NHL/AHL contracted players (even though I expect some assistance to be forthcoming). Just looking at the experience level of the nine players above says a lot about this group. They have a total of 2199 games of ECHL experience; no other team in the league is close. In addition, six of the nine have more than 20 games played in the AHL, led by Hargrove's 259. 

 

- Coach Martinson wanted to share with Allen Americans fans what he is trying to build, how the players he has signed fit into the system, with a few other tidbits along the way.  The player order is the order the players were announced. The first quote is from the press release when the player was first announced. 

Asuchak  

• Spencer gives our power-play not only net front expertise, but instant face-off puck possession, while finishing every hitting opportunity. 
• Normally, your centers are your puck dispersers. Asuchak is a different guy. He is a power center. We will be able to utilize his strengths by putting him with one of our puck-carrying/play-making wingers.
• Veteran spots are valuable, and with Spencer, you have a guy who is at the top of the chart in power play, net front, and faceoffs. 
• There are times I don't have him kill penalties because I need him for the next faceoff. He will win the faceoff, we will send the puck down the ice, and he will come off until the next faceoff. 

 

Hargrove

• Colton is the best overall forward that I’ve watched in years. He scores, makes plays, but also battles shifts in and out. He does it all. 
• When I watched Hargrove play for Allen in 2022-23. I thought he was the best overall player in the league. If I give him the right guys to play with, he can be a 100-point guy in our system. 
• I was looking for our core guys to be players who play a greasy game. Hargrove plays hard at both ends of the ice, and that is why he is a great leader. 

 

Costantini

• Marco has proven that he can be a top goalie in this league. He backstopped an OHL championship team in junior hockey (Hamilton Bulldogs). 
• I don't know a lot about Marco other than looking at his record and knowing he played great during his time in Allen. Our goalie coach, Chris Johansen, likes his game and thinks he has the ability to be a top goalie in the league. 

 

Costantini 

• Anthony has AHL experience and increases our team speed on defense, which is one of our top priorities.
• He is a real steady defenseman who I think will put up more offensive numbers in our system. When I talked to the folks in Ottawa/Belleville they liked him. 
• I want to have at least two left-right defensive pairings in the lineup. Anthony, being a right shot, will help us because we can hinge both directions. I noticed more NHL teams doing that in the playoffs. 

 

Caron

•  Thomas is a true power forward; he scores, makes plays, and hits like a truck. He is just one of the signed players who guarantees that we have the guys that can play the heavy offensive style that our fans expect and love to watch.  
• You can't just have your hitters be at the bottom of the lineup. You have to have the top guys that play against the top players on the other team, be hard to play against, and that is what we have in Caron.
• Caron's wife was born in Dallas, so they have ties to the area. She is the daughter of Mike Keane, who played in over 1100 NHL games and won three Stanley Cups, including with the Dallas Stars in 1999.   

 

Morrison

• Brad led the team in points per game last season, and if he had that pace all season, he would have been one of the ECHL’s top scorers. He’s a fast and skilled puck carrier. His junior playoff scoring tells you what he’s capable of doing. 
• I think Morrison has a ton of upside. I don't think anyone has seen the type of numbers he is capable of putting up at our level.    

 

Register

• Matt is the Brent Burns of the ECHL. He led the league in scoring for Defensemen, while with the Steelheads, and was also Idaho’s top plus/minus player three years running.  With Idaho, he had 173 points while being nearly a +100.  Last year, his plus/minus was +24, for a non-playoff team, which is literally unheard of. Reggie will be a player-coach for us until he’s ready to retire, and then will seamlessly step behind our bench.
• If you want to play an offensive-type game, you can't do it with all of the offense coming from the forwards. Nobody is better at creating offense from the point than Register. With the defensemen we already have signed and those we still have coming, we will have plenty of offense from the point. 
•  Reggie has soft hands along with the skill and vision to find guys at the side of the net.

 

Spinozzi

• Kevin gives us the one-two punch that Matt Register and Les Lancaster had a few years ago. He has a bomb from the point but is also tough and can play a hard game against the league’s top players. These two give us proven scoring that will be a lot of fun to watch.
• Playing in our offensive style system, I expect Spinozzi to put up offensive numbers like he did when he played in Wheeling and in Europe. In Wheeling, he led all ECHL defensemen in goals (17) and only played in 44 games, because he spent time in the AHL.
• I am not bringing him in to play the tough guy role, but he is tough and difficult to play against. If he does drop the gloves, he knows what he is doing.   

 

Watts

• Brayden is the type of puck carrier that can really flourish in our system. I believe he will commit to our all-out offense and all-in defense mentality. This is going to be Brayden's year to establish himself as one of the top players in the league. 
• He is a playmaker who can also score. He led his team in assists the last two seasons and in the last four seasons finished #1, #3, #2, and #3 in points on his team.
• His offense is a big plus for the style we want to play, as he is an excellent puck carrier. The key to his success will be on the defensive side of the puck. Look for him to play a more defensive and greasier game. I am counting on that from Brayden.     

 

OTHER  MARTINSON QUOTES  

"In a perfect world, we will have a great puck carrier on every line."  

 "To be successful in having defensemen jump up in the play, you have to have forwards that can go east and west and can pull up and find the late guy. Hargrove, Watts, and Morrison are some of the top guys that have that skill, and we will have others as well."   

"The team this season is being modeled more like our heyday teams in that we have a lot of top players signing with us. The difference is that a lot of our top guys have AHL experience and can skate."

"Where do we go from here? We still have some guys to announce. We have some physical guys coming, we have guys from last year, and players I get from working through an affiliation. I have said before and will say again, the training camp will be very competitive."

"I am not there yet, but everything is being put in place to announce an affiliation, hopefully in the next few days."

"We want to be hitters, and then whatever happens will happen. We will have a lot of players that are not necessarily fighters, but hit. Then we will have guys that hit and fight."    

 

- I asked Martinson to explain exactly what he means by all-out offense and all in defense, because he used to say all-out offense and all-out defense. These are some of the things that go on that fans may not understand. Here is what he had to say:

"It is easy to be all-out offense; players are very good at that. What has been challenging with some of the teams I have had is defense. By redefining it as all-in defense, I acknowledge some players are better at it than others, but everyone has to buy in. When we are coming back, we are coming back full speed, and that is an easy thing to see."

"The other big key to all-in defense is reading the play. Good hockey IQ is the ability to pay attention and quickly make decisions based on observation. Players have to read percentages of what is going to happen. That includes the location of the puck battle, who is in the battle, and where are the other players. Using all of that information and quickly determining the risk/reward. Some players are always on the offensive side of a puck battle because if they gain possession of the puck, they are in a good position to create a scoring chance, but if they lose the puck, they are in a bad position that can lead to an odd-man rush. My all-in defensive mentality is making sure our positioning is right for how the play is developing. That is the big difference in giving up odd-man rushes. In my last year in Allen, we gave up a league-leading 20 shorthanded goals when we had our best offensive players on the power play. That was more than any year of my coaching career. The reason that happened is that too many of those players were always on the offensive side of things. Some players want to score and take risks without thinking about the score of the game. We always want to score, but you have to do it within a system. All it means is not cheating to score. Hockey IQ is knowing when to take the risk to be on the offensive side of the puck. Reading and reacting quickly is key."

"With players that make better decisions, you allow them to make mistakes because they don't make as many. A step further is that players who have good offensive numbers are allowed to be a bit more offensive in their decision-making because they make plays. It is the guys who don't make a lot of plays and make bad decisions defensively that get a shorter leash. How do you get a longer leash? You make more good decisions than you make bad decisions."