Why Wyatt Cullen Has Superstar Potential With Gophers Hockey

Wyatt Cullen was selected with the 10th overall pick in the first round of Friday night's NHL Draft.

Jun 26, 2026; Buffalo, New York, USA; Wyatt Cullen reacts beside NHL commissioner Gary Bettman and country singer Luke Bryan after being selected with the tenth pick in the first round of the 2026 NHL Draft by the Nashville Predators at KeyBank Center. Mandatory Credit: Timothy T. Ludwig-Imagn Images | Timothy T. Ludwig-Imagn Images

Moorhead, Minnesota native Wyatt Cullen will be joining Gophers hockey next season with boatloads of hype, and he'll now arrive in Dinkytown as a top-10 NHL Draft pick.

Cullen was selected with the 10th overall pick in the first round of Friday night's NHL Draft by the Nashville Predators. He will be the highest-draft Gopher since Logan Cooley was selected with the third overall pick in 2022. He's only the 10th Gophers player ever to be selected inside the top 10 of the modern-draft era.

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Cullen committed to the Gophers last summer alongside his older brother, Brooks Cullen, who flipped his decision from Michigan State to Minnesota. They're both sons of Minnesota hockey legend and NHL veteran Matt Cullen, who's joining Brett Larson's first coaching staff as the Director of Player Development. Matt Cullen even played for the Nashville Predators from 2013 to 2015.

Wyatt Cullen is a 6-foot-1 forward who has been playing with the USA Hockey National Team Development Program (USNTDP) for the past two seasons. He had 45 total points (16 goals and 29 assists) in 40 games last season. He'll now make the NCAA jump with his brother Brooks and join the Gophers for the 2026-27 season.

When Cooley and Jimmy Snuggerud joined the Gophers as first-round pick, they immediately hit the ground running. Cooley had 60 points (22 goals and 38 assists) as a true freshman in 2022-23, which was his lone season with the program. Snuggerud had 50 points (21 goals and 29 assists during the 2022-23 season.

Oliver Moore and Matthew Wood were the last first-round-pick forward to play for the Gophers. Wood played two college seasons at UConn before transferring to Minnesota, but he had 34 points (11 goals and 23 assists) in his first college season with the Huskies. Moore had 33 points (9 goals and 24 assists) during his freshman campaign in 2023-24.

So what are realistic expectations for Cullen? Can he perform at the level of Cooley and Snuggerud as a freshman with 50+ points? Or will he be at the level of Moore and Wood, who were around 30 points in their first college seasons? Wood is Canadian, but the three other players had similar developmental paths to Cullen as USNTDP products.

The Gophers could have a talented frontline next season with Brodie Ziemer and LJ Mooney returning alongside incoming St. Cloud State transfer Austin Burnevik. There's only one puck to go around, but Cullen has the potential to be the next superstar freshman for Gophers men's hockey.