2025 NHL Draft Prospect Profile: Braeden Cootes

Upside Hockey's NHL Draft profile series: Aces Edition, Vol. 3

Upside Hockey’s prolific prospect profiler Trevor Curtis’s 2025 NHL draft eligible prospect profiles are all featured on our dedicated page for this with all featured prospects indexed in our table of contents alphabetically by last name. For the 2024 NHL Draft, we had well over 200 prospect profiles completed.

Draft Thoughts (Aces Edition, Vol. 3):

RHC Braeden Cootes (6'0",183lbs)

Seattle (WHL): 60gp/ 26g/ 37a/ 63pts, +5, 18 PIM

The Seattle Thunderbirds were the 2nd-worst team in the WHL in mid-January, but surged in the last few months of the season as some new faces became more acclimated to the team (Radim Mrtka for one), rising up high enough to squeak into the playoffs as the 16th-seed out of 22 teams. The excitement was short-lived however, as the T-Birds were eliminated from the post-season in the first round by the Everett Silvertips, in six games.

Braeden Cootes (Photo Credit: Seattle Thunderbirds - Brian Liesse)

The youngest Captain in the 'Dub this season was Seattle's Braeden Cootes (ranked # 20 NA Skaters, # 22 by McKenzie, # 38 by Button), who also wore the "C" in the most recent U-18 Tournament, leading Team Canada to a Gold Medal. He compiled 6 goals and 12 points in just 7 games at that event, good enough for 4th-overall, and 1st in scoring on a star-studded Team Canada. Cootes also led his team in scoring through the WHL playoffs, with 8 points in 6 games.

A smart, gritty, two-way C, he plays in all situations as a heart-and-soul warrior, with a mature pro-style game, and is obviously a natural leader.

Cootes is a first-rate defensive center, and a superb penalty-killer, who is always highly involved and engaged in his own-zone. With good habits, immaculate positioning, and a detailed approach, he backchecks hard- disrupting breakouts, disturbing transition, and snuffing entries, with unrelenting motor and tenacity through every inch of the entire 200-ft ice-surface.

Driven by elite defensive awareness and anticipation, he shuts plays down proactively with stick-lifts, pass interceptions, poke-checks, sweeps and chops, and skating into hands. He's highly disruptive, with the ability to apply extreme pressure on opponents with his insurmountable pace, his physicality, and his ability to read the play and react with aggressive foresight, taking away time and space from puck-carriers with his dog-on-a-bone mentality. As any responsible defensive center would do, he suffocates incursions to the middle, lifts sticks from behind, forces attacks to the outside, blocks shots, and supports his defensemen- both down low, as well as in front of the net. Cootes is usually the first forward back in the zone.

A fearless warrior, he plies a high amount of physicality and grit all over the ice, including huge hits in open-ice and along the boards to slow down the opposing team's attack, and dislodge pucks. He is stifling to breakouts on the forecheck, challenging puck-carriers with his pace, keeping them off-balance with stick-checks, and forcing turnovers with physical pressure. He battles hard for pucks in all the greasy areas of the ice, including the net-front, and is usually the first on a loose puck. Going forward, he will need to bulk up significantly, and get much stronger, if he wishes to play the same style in the pros.

Cootes provided a very good argument with his stellar performance at the U-18's that he's much more than a potential 3rd-line checker, and though he's slightly more of a playmaker than finisher, he has a balanced offensive game. He exerts a very simple meat-and-potatoes style, and gets most of his tallies from his nose for the net; he will drive the crease to convert rebounds, and isn't afraid to plant himself in-front to clean up garbage, or tip shots.

He consistently finds slivers of space in the middle to occupy off-puck, and attacks the slot with possession. He displays soft hands in-close, and can bulge twine from between the dots, but his shot is not that special, and is in need of refinement in terms of power and precision- he could also also use a sneakier release. As with the defensive-third, he owns excellent awareness in the other end of the ice, with a clear map of where his teammates are, and makes quick decisions with crisp and accurate feeds- threading the needle through traffic, as he displayed at the U-18's, and he's adept at passing from his backhand.

Cootes is pretty strong on the puck, but his puck-skills are around average; he can deke through traffic at times, dangle around defenders, and exhibits tight protection ability, but he sometimes struggles to get pucks under control after receptions while in-motion, and can lose the handle at top-speed once in a while. This limits him a bit in transition, and he tends to defer to teammates to do the carrying, while playing more of a support role.

An excellent skater, he wins most races, outruns defenders, and creates distance from pursuers in open-ice- but he still isn't getting the most out of stride, as he's not fully extending. He hustles extremely hard, which amplifies his speed, and wields a high-activity rate, with the ability to dictate the pace. Adding strength to his lower-body will make his acceleration more explosive, and he could use a little more fluidity in his edges. Cootes has the ceiling of a highly responsible, 2nd-line C- but he's a safe pick, with the possibility of settling in as a high-end 3C. Look for him in the second-half of the first-round.

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See where Cootes landed in our most recent mock draft: