2025 Draft Eligible
Arizona State University (NCAA)
C, 5-foot-10, 172 pounds, Shoots: L
DOB: 1.10.2007
Cullen Potter is one of the most electric prospects up for the draft this season. His game combines best-in-class skating with exceptional puck skills, which has made him a dangerous threat in the NCAA as a 17-year-old freshman.
Last season, Potter led a weaker class of NTDP prospects on the Under-17 team with 17 goals and 29 assists for 46 points in 54 games. I wrote about his play last season in our Summer of 25′ – Introducing USA article, where we ranked him 5th in the United States region, citing that while his game had no glaring weaknesses and abundant skill, he could struggle if he lacked confidence at higher levels.
This season, he opted for the accelerated approach, joining college hockey a year early rather than remaining with the NTDP on the Under-18 team. This was a move that was questioned by some, but he has since proven his decision right. His jump to the NCAA has allowed him to showcase his shot and transition play more than with the NTDP, while unveiling some potential room for improvement as he moves to even higher levels. Potter’s 13 goals this season are the third most scored by any 17-year-old in the past 20 years, behind only Macklin Celebrini and Jonathan Toews. He’s been the most dangerous player every game this season, leading the team as the most played forward at even strength. A strong WJC-18 showing, where he rejoined his former NTDP teammates, has only added to his case for being one of the first US-born prospects off the board this year.
Potter’s game is headlined by his NHL-style rushes in transition, showcasing his strong skating habits and speed, and a strong yet adaptable release that makes him a threat whenever the puck is on his stick. His quick reaction time and impressive hands allow him to make decisions and move the puck as he pleases, even at top speed. The transition from skill-heavy draft-eligible linemates to seasoned college vets (almost 50% of his ice-time this season was spent with linemates at least five years older than him) has taken a toll on his playmaking abilities. Defensively, he’s been great at supporting play and breaking out, but still has room for improvement in disrupting plays with his stick and body.
Many scouts see Potter as a boom-or-bust candidate, with his ranking varying from 7th overall to 54th between scouting agencies. Here at McKeen’s, we have Potter ranked 14th overall and second among US-born players. Although he will inevitably slip in the draft due to his size and teams’ current push for bigger players, whoever selects Potter will be pleased to add a dynamic, skill-focused skater with top six upside in the NHL.
Skating
Skating is the name of the game with Cullen Potter. There are shades of the league’s best in how he uses his powerful strides and strong edgework to blow past defenders and create space for himself. He’s one of the strongest skaters in transition that we’ve seen in the past decade. His pure speed is impressive, but it’s his equally quick decision-making and execution that sets him apart. He curls deep into his defensive zone to support the puck on breakouts and builds momentum with strong crossovers to attack space in the neutral zone. Potter’s teammates often bump it to him and let him run it into the offensive zone, as they trust his ability to work the puck past even seasoned defenders. Only when seriously challenged does he bump the puck to a teammate or dump and chase. His endurance is also exemplary, allowing him to complete multiple top-speed end-to-end rushes in the same shift. In pressure and against the wall, Potter also demonstrates strong skating qualities. He uses hard cutbacks and drives proactive contact with his legs to keep prying sticks away from the puck. He does tend to curl unnecessarily wide, disengaging him from the play, especially when he’s ignored by teammates. Similar minor flaws with overhandling and frustration with teammates could be ironed out with stricter coaching.
Potter uses a combination of powerful crossovers and straight-line strides to reach top speed quickly as he exits the defensive zone and attacks up the ice. His teammate unawarely takes the same lane as him, but bumps the puck to a streaking Potter when he recognizes him.
Similarly, here, Potter takes off in the defensive zone, and the puck is bumped to him. He then explodes at top speed, displaying his quick decision-making abilities as he fakes past fellow top prospect Radim Mrtka. He draws attention and then drops it to a teammate for a less-pressured scoring chance.
Once again, Potter’s top speed through the neutral zone converts a zone entry into a scoring chance. This was in his first game in the NCAA, displaying his patience and speed control with this goal, and also some impressive shot selection, as we’ll cover in a moment.
Grade: 62.5
Shooting
Potter possesses a dangerous shot and doesn’t hesitate to turn low danger scenarios into high danger shots. The adaptability in his shooting mechanics lets him fire off shots from almost any position with power and accuracy. He ranks 3rd on the team in expected goals with 13.0, making him one of the team’s best shooters as a 17-year-old freshman. He’s got pretty impressive power behind his shot, given he’s 5’10” and 172 lbs, but nothing spectacular. Potter’s not one to set himself up for one-timers, but when the play develops naturally and the puck ends up on his stick near the net, he buries it without hesitation.
Potter pulls off a nice toe drag to give himself some space to make a play with this 2-on-1, and recognizing the commitment to the pass by the defenseman, Potter doesn’t hesitate to get a strong, accurate shot off, despite the release coming from his front leg while in stride.
Here, he draws two defenders and dishes the puck off, allowing his teammate to drive towards the net. He stays open, and when the drop pass inevitably comes, he’s prepared for a tight angle shot on a goalie who’s overplayed his teammate.
In this clip, Potter enters the zone and notices his lack of pressure, rifling it past the goalie. His release here is uninterrupted, so his shooting mechanisms are on full display. He settles the puck perfectly for his shot, and his snap and follow-through are perfect.
Grade: 55
Skills
Cullen Potter has a toolsy on-puck skillset to pair with his elite skating. His puck-handling abilities are more than good enough to keep up with his pace of play. In close quarters, his decision-making isn’t quite as good as when he has time and space, but if he has momentum, he uses his speed to defend the puck and bump it to a more open teammate.
Regarding his passing abilities, he has a great pass, and he can make stretch passes or short bumps, with speed feeding it in front of teammates in anticipation of their movements. Potter also does a great job of getting himself into space to be a threat if his teammates opt for the give-and-go. With that said, he’s not much of a playmaker in the sense that many of the other top prospects are. Rarely will Potter make a pass that sets a teammate up for a prime scoring chance at the expense of his own threat to score. Despite his lack of high-end playmaking, he’s still an effective passer. He’s 4th on the team in passes made and 4th on the team in shot assists.
There’s a reason Potter sits first on the team by a good margin in minutes with the puck on his stick. He has great puck protection instincts, especially when he’s moving with speed, so he can use momentum to keep the puck a difficult target. As a result, he had the 4th most entries with possession in the entire NCHC. Additionally, he drives through his legs and sometimes even uses his forearm to make proactive contact to deter pokechecks. Occasionally, his inexperience with college hockey can restrict his execution of plays. He frequently ran himself into opponents with limited numbers supporting, resulting in a turnover, when he could’ve ideally circled back and moved the puck to a trailing teammate so they could take advantage of the possession rather than rushing a play. But that has less to do with his puck protection abilities and more with chance recognition and patience, which he will develop in time.
Potter’s defensive game hasn’t been quite as effective against NCAA competition as it was last season. While his positioning is always strong and his errors rarely lead to goals, he could be more disruptive with his stick, breaking up pass lanes and pressuring the puck. He could work on shot blocking as he finished this season with just 4 blocks, 3rd worst on the team, despite being 5th most on the team in ice time. His strong positioning and breakout abilities do seem to compensate as he’s still 4th on the team in least expected goals against per 60 minutes.
As a result of both Potter’s size and defensive concerns, there’s worry about whether or not he will be a center or winger at the NHL level. Some notable active NHL players who were 5’10” centers in their draft year, typically around 60% move to the wing (Jake Guentzel, Clayton Keller, Travis Konecny, Cole Perfetti, Jeff Skinner, etc.) while the 40% who remain at center are typically either immensely skilled or have strong two-way games (Jack Hughes, Connor Bedard, Brayden Point, Vincent Trocheck, etc). So while Potter could make significant steps offensively to become more dynamic and end up as a center, the fact that he split the season almost exactly 50/50, paired with the defensive concerns, points towards him playing on the wing in the NHL. It’s also important to note that nearly all of the players mentioned grew from 5’10” to 5’11” or 6’0” (according to NHL.com’s heights). Even as size becomes less of a concern for Potter as he grows, he may still switch to wing.
Deception-wise, Potter’s arsenal includes strong cuts, spins, sharp stops, and cut-backs, all of which he utilizes frequently. He’s also already mastered the explosive knee-drop motion that the likes of McDavid and Barzal have shown works on just about any defenseman in the NHL. He’s immensely skilled in nearly every facet, but there are still parts of his game that he can continue to improve upon, like his puck protection when stagnant and ability to draw pressure and generate chances for his teammates. As one of the most purely skilled prospects in the entire draft, it’s reasonable to assume that if he works out in the NHL, he could be a Clayton Keller or Mathew Barzal type of impact skill player for a team someday.
Potter receives the puck at the top of the circles, walking in all alone. He baits the goaltender with a backhand toe drag, proceeding with a backhand over his pads and top shelf, all in less than a second.
Potter drives the puck into the offensive zone, uses strong positioning and momentum to protect the puck as he curls back to the point. He dishes the puck to his defenseman and targets open ice. He ends up capitalizing on the play and one-timing the puck after a funny bounce.
This clip highlights how his puck protection habits have shined in the NCAA, against stronger and better defenders than he faced in junior hockey. He performs a good retrieval, anticipates the pressuring forechecker’s pokes, and distances the puck, using his body to protect it. He continues through the neutral zone, seeing his opponents all gravitating towards one side of the rink, so he cuts back hard and drives up the wall, getting a formidable shot off on an unsuspecting goalie.
Potter walks in for his only shootout goal this season, starting slow but then using a partial mohawk to generate some speed last second. He fakes a five-hole shot to get the goalie to drop down and then puts it high blocker side.
Grade: 57.5
Smarts
While Potter’s skating and puck skills are standout aspects, his offensive and defensive awareness is one of the most underrated aspects of his game. It’s one thing to have the on-puck abilities that he has, but it’s another to be able to read the defensemen and make the right move nearly every time. The same goes for Potter’s above-average shot and how he creates and identifies holes in the goaltender’s positioning to have the premier shot selection that he displays. His lightning-fast reaction time to pair with his top speed comes from his great awareness and instincts with the puck, because under pressure, he will not have time to survey his options, and he needs to rely on those instincts.
Although his statline would suggest he is a pure shooter, this regular season was the first since he was 14 years old that he had more goals than assists. So it’s not that he cannot create scoring chances for others, because the awareness is there; this season simply didn’t have the environment to highlight his playmaking upside. He played over half of his time on ice with both linemates being at least 5 years older than him. That’s a stark difference from the NTDP and the international tournaments that he’s attended, where his linemates were all relatively the same age as him. As mentioned previously, those tournaments and the Under-17 team showcased NHL prospects who Potter could use in plays that were less structured than what seasoned NCAA veterans would be used to.
There are aspects of Potter’s decision-making that have raised some questions, specifically his off-puck engagement and support of the puck. During board battles offensively, he tends to curl wide to be a slot or backdoor threat, but if the team loses possession, it puts his team at a disadvantage because he’s out of position to stop the breakout. Additionally, in his own zone, when his team is breaking out and he hesitates or finds trouble, he occasionally continues up with too much speed through the neutral zone and ends up needing to look over his shoulder to receive passes. Luckily, he’s a very aware player, so this hasn’t led to any blind hits or injuries, but the frequency with which he’s receiving these passes will put him at risk for injuries at higher levels.
Potter enters the zone with speed, dropping the puck for his teammate, who feeds it between the legs of the Czech defenseman Radim Mrtka. Potter receives the puck and immediately creates distance from the closest defender, baiting him into overplaying Potter. Potter then uses this to dish the puck to his wide-open teammate backdoor.
Here, Potter enters the offensive zone whilst evading the tracking stick of a Slovakian defenseman. As he crosses the ice high in the offensive zone, scanning with a quick glance (blink and you’ll miss it) before dropping a no-look pass to a teammate who fires a one-timer on goal.
This clip is an example of how Potter taking off out of the defensive zone can leave him in a dangerous position receiving a pass looking over his shoulder, if he doesn’t account for the pressure the puck carrier might feel, and how that can cause hesitation. He finishes the clip with a great display of his ability to read plays as he dishes a saucer pass ahead of his teammate for a great scoring chance.
Grade: 52.5
Physicality & Compete
Potter scores high marks in the compete side and slightly lower in the physicality side. At his size, it’s expected he won’t be the most physically imposing player on the ice, but he jumps back into play quickly after taking hits and dishes out a few of his own. He does tend to turn over the puck when he’s expecting hits at a high rate. Potter’s compete level is high throughout the game, especially when the score is close or the season/tournament is on the line. He forechecks very well and backchecks just as hard for the most part. Also important to note, although he’s competitive during the game, he rarely gets into any post-whistle trouble.
Potter (5’10”, 172 lbs) flies into the zone, going into a hit against Detroit Red Wings prospect Brady Cleveland (6’5”, 220 lbs), where he leverages his momentum and hits through Cleveland’s chest, ultimately throwing him down to the ice. Arizona State does lose possession, so although this hit is an impressive display, there’s still room for improvement in execution.
Earlier in the same game, Potter also tanked a punch from Cleveland and jumped back up into play to backcheck and cut off a pass.
Here, he bodies the University of Michigan’s Hunter Hady (6’4”, 205 lbs) and outworks Hady to get the puck to his teammate, who can get a shot off as a result. This was an excellent check as he separated himself from the puck and was able to use body positioning to overcome the size difference to make a play. If he continues playing physically in this way, there’s little doubt he’ll be able to handle the NHL from a physicality perspective even though he’s a smaller frame.
This clip is where the concerns with Potter’s size and physical abilities are evident. He evades a check while chasing a dumped puck, but then gets buried behind the goal line and can't successfully get the puck to a teammate, resulting in a turnover. As the team backchecks, he’s seen gliding, potentially shaken up from the hit. But when he receives a pass, he gets caught flat-footed and is bodied again before he can get the puck to a teammate, resulting in another turnover. He does bounce back up and return to play quickly, but the turnovers in anticipation of hits are worrying.
Grade: 50
OFP: 55.125
A note on the 20-80 scale used above. We look at five attributes (skating, shooting, puck skills, hockey IQ and physicality) for skaters and six for goalies (athleticism/quickness, compete/temperament, vision/play reading, technique/style, rebound control and puck handling). Each individual attribute is graded along the 20-80 scales, which includes half-grades. The idea is that a projection of 50 in a given attribute meant that our observer believed that the player could get to roughly NHL average at that attribute at maturity.
