Despite being a tad bit undersized Cloutier was able to figure out ways to defend adequately in his own end and help his team get the puck out of the zone. He took really strong angles to puck-carriers which gave them little room to create space along the perimeter before he used a quick stick check to dislodge the puck and move it quickly to a forward. He showed a physical side to his defending as well, knocking much larger forwards off the puck by using his low center of gravity and killing cycle plays as a consequence. With the puck he often deferred to his defensive partner but was quite accurate on his D2D passes.