Asiago Hockey, first shot comes from Canada
Asiago Hockey, first shot comes from Canada
The first new face for the 2023/24 season of Migross Supermarkets Asiago Hockey is forward Matteo Gennaro. A 26-year-old native of St. Albert, Alberta, he is 188 cm tall and weighs 85 kg. His main role is as a winger, but over the years he has also had the opportunity to play as a center.
His career in Canadian juniors began in 2013 in the WHL with the Prince Albert Raiders and then continued with the Calgary Hitmen and Swift Current Broncos. In five WHL seasons he played 338 games, in which he collected 248 points, equally distributed between goals and assists.
His performance in his first two seasons with Raiders attracted the attention of NHL scouts and earned him a 7th round draft with the Winnipeg Jets as the 203rd overall pick in 2015.
In the 2018/19 season he landed in the professional world of the American Hockey League, where he played 58 games for with the Tucson Roadrunners, topped by 7 goals and 5 assists. In 2019-2022 he divides his time between the AHL with the Roadrunners and Bakersfield Condors and the ECHL with Rapid City Rush, Wichita Thunder, and Florida Everblades. In Florida he arrives at the end of March 2022 and immediately puts on a show with 9 points in 8 regular season games, while in the playoffs he is one of the team’s draggers: with 13 points in 19 games he contributes to his team’s success, capable of raising the Kelly Cup, awarded to the East Cost champions.
Last season was not the best for the new Stellato forward, who had to change four jerseys over the months. He began the season in the KHL with the Kunlun Red Stars, a Beijing-based formation led by former Italian national team coach Greg Ireland. After a difficult start, in November he moved to Slovan Bratislava in the Slovak Extraliga, with whom he played 7 games, scoring one goal and serving one assist. His adventure with Slovan lasts barely a month, then a move to Nove Zamky, also in the Extraliga, but here too his experience is very short, just 14 games in which he scores 5 points. The last step of this crazy season comes with a move to Västerviks in the Swedish Allsvenskan. In Sweden he plays 14 regular season games, in which he scores 7 points (4 goals and 3 assists), and 6 relegation games.
