Carter Amico doesn’t slow down. Never has. He decided his life’s goal before he turned 10, and knew where he wanted to play college hockey when he was 10.
He broke his patella (the kneecap) playing for the U.S. National Team Development Program in March 2024 … and was skating again, four hours a day, by July. “He’s just nonstop,” says Amico’s grandfather, Glenn.
This is somewhat out of obligation. To himself, mostly. In elementary school, a young Amico set the bar exceptionally high in a journal entry, titled “Playing in the NHL.”
“I’m going to do whatever it takes to get drafted to the nashannal hockey league,” he wrote. “Sleep breath dream HOCKEY."
This is how Amico became a second-round pick at the 2025 NHL Draft. Constantly aiming big, then relentlessly chasing. He’s refused to eat fast food the past several years, part of a very intentional and meticulous understanding of how to take care of his body. “Only nice restaurants, where it’s so expensive,” Glenn says, wincing. Growing up in humble Westbrook, Maine, he’d shoot and handle pucks until it got dark, which is at least partly why Glenn says his grandson is the hardest worker he’s ever seen.
“Carter’s a kid that we never really had to push,” says Amico’s mother, Marissa.
But there are pitfalls to always moving at full speed. Amico doesn’t go as far as calling them “cons,” but he’s honest about it.
RECRUITING: Tracking all the commits since Aug. 1
Example one: that broken patella. He says he was perhaps too excited to get back on the ice and did too much, too soon, while also being naive to the ramifications of residual pain. He broke the same patella again in November 2024, an injury that cost him a season of development in his first year of draft eligibility and, arguably, a spot in the first round.
Example two: “It definitely gets mentally tiring,” Amico says.
So in the months leading up to the draft, Amico started to slow down.
The week before the draft, Amico and his mother escaped. Marissa used to take Carter on vacation every year for his birthday, but time for trips went out the window once he honed in on hockey. They’d made sure to plan a graduation gift for his 18th birthday, however, one that was conveniently aligned with the draft. With a few friends, they went to Aruba.
“Oh, it was great,” Amico says. “We just took a week off to ourselves.”
They don’t know exactly how long it had been since their last vacation, but Glenn reckons it was their first since Carter was 7.
“We were like, ‘Yeah, we need this,’ ” Amico says.
For most of Amico’s life, Marissa has been a single mother. They lived in subsidized housing until Amico was 11. Marissa didn’t have the money or the time to fund Amico’s hockey career, and she was resistant to the idea entirely when Glenn first suggested Amico go to the rink. She told Glenn she knew she’d never be able to afford it, to which Glenn urged that they just see if he liked the sport first.
Marissa obliged because she knew her son was special. She’s often asked when she knew Amico was “different,” and her answer is that she always did. His drive, his competitiveness, the way he carried himself. She saw it all. His humble upbringing no doubt contributed.
“He always just wanted more,” Marissa says.
He’ll play at Boston University in the fall, which he was dead set on at age 10 because he wanted to play in a big city (“he knew it was the Mecca,” Glenn says) and in the Beanpot. Glenn says Amico wouldn’t buy cheap suits, either, which Carter attributes to a “flashy side” that he got from watching movies. It’s those kinds of things, plus Amico’s work ethic, that made Glenn want to help fund Amico’s career and take him to every showcase and tournament, even if he admits he didn’t know Amico was an “exceptional” player until he started playing at Mount St. Charles Academy.
“He just always reaches for the stars,” Glenn says. “And that’s why we’ve supported him.”
But even for Amico, his two years at the NTDP were rough. The first injury was one thing, but at least it occurred in March, after Amico had played 41 games for the U-17 team. The second was devastating. In November, only 13 games into a crucial developmental season, Amico’s time with the U-18 team essentially ended. For a 6-foot-5 right-shot defenseman who already was considered “raw,” it all but ended his chances at being a first-round pick, too. Greg Moore, Amico’s coach both years at the NTDP, said he was “extremely emotional” right after the re-injury, but he got back into the swing immediately.
READ MORE: 7 takeaways from the first three days of college hockey recruiting
Moore, Glenn and Marissa all agree Carter handled it as well as anyone could. Still, the experience provided valuable lessons.
One of them: A conservative approach helps, every once in a while.
Amico took his sweet time with the second recovery. He got a more advanced surgery, which put a plate in his knee. He avoided unnecessary workouts. He had a CAT scan done, which he didn’t the first time. He said he hasn’t felt pain in his knee for six months, and, as of writing, was just about to return to the ice, over nine months since the injury.
“It was an eye-opener for me,” Amico says. “I realized, ‘OK, what do I gotta do? I gotta take it slow.’ ”
The result was a confident medical assessment that Amico and his camp could give to NHL teams. They talked to 30 before the draft, and he says they “just told the truth” regarding the elephant in the room. Amico was able to participate in most of the notoriously chaotic pre-draft process, including the combine.
And then he went to Aruba. He relaxed. Only had to make a couple of calls, only had to go to the gym a few times. “Nothing I really had to worry about,” he says. They returned home to Maine on the weekend before the draft, and Amico didn’t leave for Los Angeles until Thursday, the day before the first round.
He doesn’t have much to report about the moments during and after the Philadelphia Flyers picked him at 38th overall.
“I don’t even think I realized I got drafted,” he says. “I heard my name called, I got up, but I had no idea where I was.”
This was Saturday morning. He was quickly whisked through an assortment of media responsibilities before preparing to fly out on Sunday morning to make Philadelphia’s development camp, which started Monday. After camp, he’d move in at BU for the Terriers’ six-week summer program. Life back in the fast lane for Carter Amico.
READ MORE: Will the "IMG Academy of the North" change prep hockey?
But not before slowing down one more time.
He remembers looking at his mom in the hotel room on that Saturday night, and just smiling.
“Dude,” he said to her, “I just got drafted in the NHL.”
