Penguins’ Draft Spotlight on Wyatt Cullen Highlights Skill, Lineage, and a Rising Skill Set

Pittsburgh’s draft process is moving into its final, detail-heavy stretch, and one of the names starting to anchor conversations is Wyatt Cullen. The Penguins’ scouting focus for the 2026 NHL Draft, which is less than three weeks away, includes Cullen as a player who projects as a difference-maker through puck skills, skating and creativity, according to draft-prospect coverage from The Hockey News.

Cullen is the son of Matt Cullen, who won back-to-back Stanley Cups with the Penguins in 2016 and 2017 and later moved into player development work within the organization. Wyatt’s connection to Pittsburgh is not just familial, it is formative. The Hockey News previously reported that Cullen grew up around the team’s culture, including time spent near the locker room and on-ice sessions with high-end NHL talents, and said he learned “the little things” that separate NHL players by observing their habits at close range.

On the ice, Cullen’s 2025-26 production and tournament showing are central to why he is in the first-round conversation. The Hockey News profile described a campaign with the U.S. National Team Development Program in which Cullen posted 16 goals and 45 points in 40 games as a winger. It also highlighted his performance at the U18 World Juniors, where he recorded three goals and nine points in five games, finishing with the best point-per-game mark in the tournament at 1.80, a metric that underscores both scoring touch and consistency in short, high-pressure competition.

Scouts and evaluators often translate box score output into role projections, and Cullen’s profile leans heavily toward how he creates offense rather than simply finishing chances. The Hockey News write-up emphasized his shiftiness and ability to knife through defenders, with the skating and stick-handling described as tools for separation. It also pointed to net-front work and a power-play edge, citing his vision and playmaking as traits that could travel well to the higher-tempo structure of the NHL.

For a draft class that can swing widely based on how teams view positional scarcity, skating thresholds and power-play upside, the Penguins’ spot matters. The Hockey News draft profile reported that Pittsburgh holds the 22nd overall pick in the first round. At that range, the team’s board management becomes a mix of best player available and fit, and Cullen’s profile is built around “top-end skill” as the primary separator, with the expectation that his ceiling makes him hard to ignore even if a team’s broader needs tilt elsewhere.

Cullen also made visits to the NHL Scouting Combine, where draft prospects use measurable work and informal interaction to reinforce an evaluation. In The Hockey News coverage, Cullen discussed his own assessment of where he fits, describing his skill level as part of the top tier of players in the draft. While self-scouting is not the same thing as an NHL team’s final decision, it can clarify how a prospect views his strengths and the role he believes his game should play at the next level.

What to watch next is how Pittsburgh uses its first-round slot and whether Cullen’s evaluation holds firm relative to the rest of the board when team needs and other prospects’ ceilings get compared. If the organization’s belief is that he brings immediate skill upside, Cullen’s path to impact could become a theme for Penguins fans watching the roster planning that follows the draft.