Easily the leader for best name among the Penguins prospects, Lucius has a lot to prove this season at Arizona State.
The 2025 version of our Pensburgh Top 25 Under 25 countdown list kicks off your Monday morning with a piece of the Jake Guentzel trade coming off a tough college season.
Catch up on the previous entries for this year:
Pensburgh Top 25 Under 25: Graduates and Departed players in 2025
Top 25 Under 25: The best of the rest
No. 25: Quinn Beauchense
#24: Cruz Lucius, RW
2024 Ranking: No. 24
Age: 21 (April 5, 2004)
Acquired Via: Trade (w/ Carolina Hurricanes for Jake Guentzel)
Height/Weight: 6-foot-0, 179 pounds
After two productive seasons at Wisconsin, prospect Cruz Lucius transferred to Arizona State for his junior season where his development hit a bump in the road following an injury that limited him to only 19 games last season for the Sun Devils. In those 19 games, Lucius only posted two goals and 10 points, a significant step back from where he was with the Badgers and it cost him 10 spots in our rankings compared to where he debuted last year.
It was a shoulder injury that cost Lucius a large chunk of his first season at Arizona State, where he will return this coming season for his senior year of college hockey. Now the pressure is on his back to bounce back and prove to the Penguins he can still be the prospect they were hoping for back when he was acquired for Jake Guentzel from the Carolina Hurricanes.
Earlier this month, Lucius participated in the Penguins annual development camp and turned some heads with his performance. When asked about his performance at camp and the team’s expectations for Lucius, Pittsburgh Penguins Head of Player Development Tom Kostopoulos praised what he saw on the ice and was blunt in his assessment as to what this season meant for the prospect.
From the Penguins:
His skillset is really, he’s got a high end skillset. I think his shot, his puck skills are elite. I thought the one play that I was most impressed with in the games is on Horcoff’s goal, he set it up by tracking back and forcing the turnover and then he scored the nice goal after that. So it was good to see him get rewarded offensively.
I think he knows this is a huge year for him. He has to prove what kind of player he can become and he’s been working hard throughout the summer and I know he is going to push himself, so this would be a big season for him. I know his coach is expecting a lot from him at a ASU, so it’d be a good season for him.
Safe to say the Penguins have high expectations for Lucius, but the onus is now on him to go out and show what he’s capable of doing on the ice. Losing a chunk of last season recovering from a shoulder injury certainly set back his development in a significant way, and being robbed of an offseason while transferring to a new school was always going to be a difficult obstacle to overcome. Those roadblocks are not in place this season and the expectation from the Penguins organization is for Lucius to go out and show what he can do and get that development back on track.
Interestingly enough, Lucius joined the Penguins organization at a time they were restructuring and putting a greater emphasis on development as they prepare to build for the next generation. This is something that has stuck out to Lucius since coming over from Carolina, and he discussed that during development camp.
One of the sentiments that has been echoed by many in the organization throughout the summer is that there is a major focus on development. General manager and president of hockey operations Kyle Dubas has said it. Assistant general manager Jason Spezza has talked about it. So, too, has new head coach Dan Muse.
Director of player development Tom Kostopoulos discussed the growth of the Penguins’ development team since Dubas took the reigns in the summer of 2023.
“I think that ownership and management has built out a ton of resources available to players that can only help them,” Kostopoulos said. “And, if the players are willing to use that to help them develop, that’s where we’re seeing growth in some of the players. It’s been a lot of fun to watch the growth in the staff, then resulting in helping the players develop.”
Lucius has also noticed the breadth of the Penguins’ developmental staff. And he loves how individualized the approach from the organization is when it comes to each player, which is something that isn’t necessarily common across NHL organizations.
“The development piece of it is, from what it seems like, next to none,” Lucius said. “The amount of people that put their energy – and really, a lot of their energy – into each individual player, it’s really, really cool to see. And I think that’s something with my injury, seeing how great everyone was and how much help the organization was for even just some little things, too – before surgery, and after, and during.
“It’s just really, really good, and they just want you to get better every single day.”
Whether or not Lucius can get his development back on track remains to be seen and it’s clear the Penguins will be keeping a close eye on his progress at Arizona State this winter. There may be some added pressure placed upon him from being a piece in the Jake Guentzel trade, but the Penguins development team was quite clear that they have the bar set high for Lucius this season.
How Lucius responds to the challenge set before him will go a long way in determining what his NHL future looks like in the Penguins organization. The next good look at where he stands will be in September at the Prospects Challenge the team will participate in and then potentially a small stint in training camp if he earns an invite.
After that, he will be an intriguing prospect to keep an eye on his college hockey season which kicks off for Lucius and the Sun Devils in October against Gavin McKenna and the Penn State Nittany Lions.