Joey Cullen did not just commit to the Minnesota Gophers. He closed the circle on the most audacious family takeover college hockey has seen in a generation, and if you are treating Sunday’s Instagram post like another recruiting blip, I need you to sit down.
Sixteen years old. Moorhead Spuds product. Top-ranked American forward in the 2010 birth year. A kid already in the conversation for the No. 1 overall pick in the 2028 NHL Draft. And the second the August 1 verbal window cracked open for rising juniors, he locked it down for Minnesota while standing in Edmonton preparing for the Hlinka Gretzky Cup. “I am proud and honored to announce my commitment to play Division 1 hockey at The University of Minnesota,” he wrote. Clean. Direct. No drama. That is the Cullen way.
I have watched this league and this state long enough to know when something is bigger than a press release. This is bigger.
Three Brothers and a Cup Winner Is Not a Roster. It Is a Declaration.
Let me tell you something about Matt Cullen. Three Stanley Cups. Twenty-one NHL seasons. The man joined Bob Motzko’s staff in April as Director of Player Development, and now his entire bloodline is wearing maroon and gold. Brooks and Wyatt are incoming freshmen for 2026-27. Wyatt went tenth overall to Nashville in June and sat on NHL Network Radio talking about the dream out loud: “Hopefully, my younger brother (Joey) will commit there soon, and we all play together someday.”
Joey just made that hope a schedule.
People will shrug and say it was inevitable. Of course the kid follows Dad and the brothers. I reject that framing with everything I have. Inevitable is lazy. Inevitable ignores what Joey Cullen actually is on the ice. Nineteen goals and 21 assists in 18 high school games last winter while helping Moorhead repeat as Class 2A state champions. One hundred fifty-one points in 51 Bantam AA games the year before. Honeybaked 15U AAA numbers that made scouts rewrite their boards. Selected 20th overall by Victoria in the WHL draft and still choosing the college path. This is not nepotism. This is a blue-chip talent choosing the hardest version of the family reunion.
I said it when Wyatt went tenth. I will say it louder now. The Cullens are not joining the Gophers. They are annexing the program’s future.
The 2028 Board Just Got a Maroon Stamp
Joey is headed to the NTDP U17 team in Plymouth this fall. Youngest player on the U.S. Under-18 Select squad for the Hlinka. Already scored a power-play goal in the pre-tournament win over Slovakia. From Edmonton he told the Star Tribune he was “really happy and super excited.” Earlier, after Hlinka tryouts, he said it plain: “It’s been good to play against older, more experienced players and just get used to that. I’m just super grateful.”
Grateful. That is the word that should terrify every other Big Ten and NCHC coach. Because gratitude at that level, paired with that bloodline and that skill set, does not leave. It multiplies.
I have watched programs chase one elite forward and call it a class. Minnesota just secured the American centerpiece of the 2028 draft class on day two of the window, after already landing Nash Roed and Henry Meier the day before. That is not recruiting. That is empire-building. And when Joey arrives for the 2028-29 season, the three brothers and their father will occupy the same building with the same crest. You tell me the last time a college hockey program engineered that kind of continuity on purpose.
Legacy is not a highlight reel. Legacy is three siblings and a Cup-winning father deciding the University of Minnesota is the only stage worthy of their name. Rings will be the measuring stick. Status will be the currency. And every rival that slept on this weekend just got notified that the Gophers are done asking for respect.
I am telling you right now: when the 2028 draft rolls around and Joey Cullen’s name is called near the top, the first words out of his mouth will be about that family and that program. The rest of college hockey can keep pretending this was expected. I am calling it what it is.
An unmitigated power move. A statement. And the clearest signal yet that Minnesota hockey’s next decade already has its last name.
