As someone who has been on our rankings for a while, Cooper showed a mixture of play throughout the games but came alive in the second half of the game against OHA Edmonton. When he’s active and determined, he can chase down players along the wall defensively and be quite physical along the boards. His offensive upside includes quality passes up ice to the tape, centering passes to the slot, and using his heavy wrist shot power from the point. He can use his length to extend his reach and step into game-altering shots from distance. There were moments though where he misread moments to poke check off the rush defense, and transitionally had passes go just a little too far in front of players. He continues to be a very curious player with ample upside.

As someone who had already shown up in our Top-40 rankings, there was an expectation for Cooper to try and dominate play at an event like this. He’s got size, power, physicality, and a quick stick reaction time to counter forechecking and make that outlet up the ice. Cooper has the ability to cut off lanes defensively by matching speeds and use his presence to force players wide and into cutting back. His power as a puck rusher is evident too but sometimes he falls into the habit of dropping his head and protecting wide as he’s progressing which loses vision laterally. For a strong skater as well, there are moments he can still improve by lowering the center of gravity and trying to get more depth to his cuts. I still expect him to be highly considered in the top-3 rounds of the draft.

I really had to dig in my notes from last season to find if I had written much at all about Cooper heading into this season and while I did find some positive comments, I think the strength of the SaskEast team is only going to shine a light on his upside even more. He is already listed at 6’1 and 170 lbs and you can see that in particular on the strength of his shot release. He strides into his snapshots with an intensity that I haven’t seen very often from defensemen at this point. I’m hoping to catch another game or so to get more views to round out the coverage on him but he’s sitting in a three-way tie for tops in defensive scoring in the SAAHLU15 with 16 points in 6 games. Folks will be interesting.

I really had to dig in my notes from last season to find if I had written much at all about Cooper heading into this season and while I did find some positive comments, I think the strength of the SaskEast team is only going to shine a light on his upside even more. He is already listed at 6’1 and 170 lbs and you can see that in particular on the strength of his shot release. He strides into his snapshots with an intensity that I haven’t seen very often from defensemen at this point. I’m hoping to catch another game or so to get more views to round out the coverage on him but he’s sitting in a three-way tie for tops in defensive scoring in the SAAHLU15 with 16 points in 6 games. Folks will be interesting.