The Stingrays have agreed to terms with forward Matt Tugnutt for the upcoming season.
Tugnutt is not new to the league, as he spent the majority of the 2021-22 season with the Idaho Steelheads, alongside former Stingray Evan Wardley, before going to the cross-state rivals, the Greeneville Swamp Rabbits, that March. With the Steelheads, he registered 20 points in 49 games. During the 2022-23 season, he opted to go overseas and signed with the Chamonix Mont-Blac Pioneers, the top French hockey league. In his 39 games with the Pioneers, he accumulated 13 goals and 16 assists.
Before his professional career, Tugnutt played Division I hockey for four seasons with Sacred Heart and Providence College, both of which are already represented on Coach Kotyk’s roster this season. He played three seasons with Sacred Heart, overlapping with Austin Magera and Ryan Steele, where he posted 23 goals and 30 assists. In his final season with the team, the assistant captain posted a +21, the best of his career. During his final year of NCAA play at Providence, he shared the ice with Jack Adams, who was the first to sign with the team for the upcoming season.
You could say that hockey is in his blood, as his father, Ron Tungett, saw action in 537 NHL games and was goaltender in the league for 16 seasons.
I don’t know what Coach Kotyk has up his sleeve, but something tells me we need to keep an eye on South Carolina this season because greatness is brewing in the low country. You can’t fabricate on-ice chemistry, and clearly, half of signed forwards already have.
