The important thing is to make sure the impedance is matched; that is, most home speakers are rated for either 8 Ohm or 16 Ohm loads; the wattage changes depending on the load.
When you check the specifications of the amplifier portion of the receiver (in the manual under specifications), look for both numbers: i.e., “110 watts per channel at 8 ohms/channel” and if your speakers are rated for 8 ohms, then you would be able to get that yield of wattage.
Keep in mind that the wattage is an “average” number not the peak wattage, in most cases; if the spec says “110 watts RMS” then that means that it “averages” around 110 watts per channel. RMS is usually about 60 percent or so of the max wattage, so if you’re trying to properly match wattage between components, you want to make sure that the RMS is close to the wattage rating for the speaker.
If it’s way off, then what will happen is that when you try to “crank” up your speakers, at louder levels, the speakers are “asking” for more power (I try to picture Scotty from Star Trek saying “We need more power”), and the amp can’t deliver it because it’s maxed. The main contributor to damaged drivers on a speaker is under-powering them, as opposed to over-powering them, meaning, powering them with an amp that doesn’t supply enough wattage when driving the speakers to the max levels.
You can actually hear evidence of under-powering, when you play a loud-volume signal, the speaker makes an odd crackling especially in the low-to-mid range; as opposed to a speaker being “over-powered” where you’d actually hear the speaker clipping or “cutting out”, crackling is actually indicative of under-powering. Under-powering can actually damage both the speaker and the amp under “ideal” conditions.
Sorry so technical…I guess you can say I’m an audio-geek!