Sculpins (Superfamily Cottoidea) are a diverse clade of fishes found across an array of marine and freshwater habitats including submarine canyons, rivers, kelp forests, deep open waters, and tidepools. These varied habitats beget a wide variety of swimming modes, from dorsal fin undulators to pectoral rowers, and despite most sculpins living along the benthos, some taxa from Lake Baikal are pelagic. This diversity of swimming modes, combined with variable morphologies, may speak to the diverse microhabitats these fishes fill. In this study we evaluate how shape and morphology have shaped swimming kinematics in thirteen species across three cottoid families. Using Matlab, we extracted kinematics from those videos including swimming speed (BL/s), tail beat frequency (Hz), and body amplitude (BL). After swimming trials, we CT (computed tomography) scanned individual specimens and measured a range of morphometric variables including head width, caudal peduncle height, aspect ratio, tail length, pelvic fin length and pectoral fin length, which are proven metrics that relate to swimming performance. Finally, we used phytools in R to show how different traits and behaviors evolved over time across the sculpin phylogeny. Our results reveal that sculpin with smaller heads, reduced peduncle height, and smaller pectoral fins relative to their body size swam significantly faster than those sculpins with larger relative lengths.