A rookie forward who played more than 5 games for Coach Cooper? In this economy? Indeed, that did happen, and it wasn’t from one of the Lightning’s draft picks. Instead it was Mitchell Chaffee who earned a spot on the roster and kept it for the majority of the second half of the season.
The Basics
Name: Mitchell Chaffee
Position: Forward
Counting Stats: 30 Games, 4 Goals, 3 Assists, 11:17 TOI
Extra Stats (5v5): 47.34 CF%, 46.62 SF%, 54.55 GF%, 40.99 xGF%, 45.38 HDCF%, .933 On-ice Save Percentage, 3.07 iXG
2023-24 Contract: He played on a one-year deal worth $775,000 ($250,000 in the minors).
Contract Status: The first year of a two-year deal with a cap hit of $800,000.
The Charts
The Review
When Julien BriseBois signed Mitchell Chaffee to a one-year contract last summer, he probably wasn’t expecting the Michigan native to play in 30 games for the Lightning during the season. In fact, just how many games Chaffee would appear in was in question considering the fact he was coming off major knee surgery. In the end, Mr. BriseBois’ low-stakes gamble was successful.
A hot start in Syracuse (1 goal, 6 assists in the first 7 games) put the former UMass forward on the radar, and after a brief recall in December, he was called up for good at the end of January after he had put up 11 goals and 14 assists in 33 games with the Crunch. From February onward he was a staple in the Lightning’s bottom-six, sprinkling in four goals and three assists over 30 regular season games. He appeared in all five post-season games and tied for 13th on the team with 0 points.
It took a while for Chaffee to find some consistent linemates, but he eventually settled in with Nick Paul and Mikey Eyssimont as the team’s third line. While it would be a stretch to call them dominating, they did play well together as they put up a positive goal share (60%), shot attempts share (51.53%), and broke even on scoring chances (46-45) and high-danger chances (22-22). While they didn’t score a goal in 43 minutes together in the postseason they did generate a 1.57 xGF and controlled 56.34% of the shot attempts.
Chaffee came up through the college program as a scorer, putting up 47 goals in 109 games for UMass before he signed as an undrafted free agent with the Minnesota Wild. The scoring continued in the AHL as he has 42 goals in 123 games between the Iowa Wild and Syracuse Crunch. In his brief NHL career, he’s adapted to more of a defensive role, racking up the hits (88 at 5v5) and blocking shots (20) as opposed to putting the puck in the net.
While 4 goals in 30 games as a rookie is nothing to sneeze at (he tied for 31st in goals scored by rookies) there is a chance he could have had more if he had been given a different role with the Bolts. One thing that jumps out in his stats is that he shot 14.8% as a Bolt, which was 7th on the Lightning (and higher than Nikita Kucherov and Brandon Hagel). If we see that he had a high shooting percentage but a low amount of total goals we can deduce one thing – he didn’t shoot the puck a lot.
In fact, his 9.66 iCF/60 ranked 17th on the team among skaters who played more than 10 games. His actual shots per 60 is a little higher at 4.92/60, which was 12th on the team. However, that pales in comparison to what he did at his previous levels of hockey. Since minutes played isn’t a stat easily available for college or AHL players, we took a look at the shots per game played he posted in his career. In the NHL it was 0.9 shots per game. In college it was 2.68 shots per game while he almost duplicated that in the AHL with a 2.66 average.
That might be an aspect of the game that we see tick up next season. The Lightning liked what they saw in his somewhat limited NHL action last season as they signed him to a two-year, one-way contract worth $1.6 million this summer. The fact that it was a one-way deal indicates that he has earned a spot on the NHL roster and won’t be shuffling back and forth to Syracuse.
Will he keep that third-line role? That’s a question that should be answered in training camp. There is competition for a spot on the second line and Chaffee has the pedigree and offensive instincts to earn it. There isn’t a lot that is splashy about his game. He’s not the fastest skater, but relies more on playing a power forward game in front of the net. If he was to team up with Anthony Cirelli and Brandon Hagel, that’s a lot of action happening in front of the opposing team’s goaltender as the Lightning’s defensemen chuck pucks at the net.
As we can see from his shot chart from Evolving Hockey, he doesn’t wing it from the perimeter. Chaffee prefers wrist/snap shots from close range as opposed to letting it fly from distance.
Defensively, there are some points to his game that could use improvement. He was on the ice for a few too many high-danger chances against (11.84/60, 5th highest on the team) and you can see on the isolated impacts chart above that there is a lot of red on his side of the ice in the Lightning’s zone. Experience at the NHL level can help in that regard as he learns how to better defend in his own zone and the coaching staff seemed willing to give him that chance as the season continued.
It’s now been more than a full year since he returned from reconstructive knee surgery as well. Other players in the past have talked about how it usually takes more than a year to come back from big knee injuries, both physically and mentally. With a full season of playing on the fixed knee, he might have a little more confidence in it and be able to focus fully to his actions on the ice without having the worry of re-injuring it in the back of his mind.
There is a real chance that the Lightning’s professional scouting staff unearthed a really good player when they signed him last season. If he can take his play to the next level in this upcoming season he could prove to be a valuable addition to the offense.
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