Mitchell Chaffee
Tampa Bay Lightning Right Wing
Undrafted, 12 goals in 66 games, and the worst chance share on the club by six points.
| Season | Team | GP | G | A | PTS | +/- | PIM | PP | SH | GW | S | S% | TOI |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2021-22 | MIN | 2 | 0 | 0 | 0 | +1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 0.0 | 7:27 |
| 2023-24 | TBL | 30 | 4 | 3 | 7 | +2 | 4 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 27 | 14.8 | 11:17 |
| 2024-25 | TBL | 66 | 12 | 6 | 18 | -3 | 21 | 4 | 0 | 2 | 68 | 17.6 | 12:02 |
| 2025-26 so far | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — |
| Career | — | 98 | 16 | 9 | 25 | 0 | 25 | 4 | 0 | 2 | 96 | 16.7 | 11:43 |
This Season So Far
The 2025-26 season has not started. The empty row above is his, and both it and this paragraph fill in on their own from the morning after he first plays: what he has done, what it is worth against his own last season, and the run he is on when the two disagree.
Last Season
12 goals and 6 assists in 66 games — 18 points at 12:02 a night, minus-3, with 4 power-play goals and 21 penalty minutes on 68 shots.
41.3 per cent of the expected goals at five-on-five, the 4th percentile — the worst mark on the club by six points. His ice went 38-24 against an expectation of 21.09-30.00, which is a seventeen-goal finishing surplus on a fourth line and a defensive record six goals better than the chances. Both of those are noise.
The Finesse Game
68 attempts at a median of 21 feet with 45 per cent from inside 20, converting at 17.6 per cent for 12 goals. He goes to the paint and last season everything went in.
6 assists in 66 games. There is no creation and there is not meant to be; he is a net-front body on a fourth line who ended up with four power-play goals because the club has nobody else who will stand there.
The Physical Game
6-1 and 197 and he plays a heavy forechecking game. He finishes checks, he wins pucks below the goal line, and he goes to the front of the net.
21 penalty minutes in 66 games is a moderate rate. He is honest rather than nasty and he does not go looking for anything.
The Intangibles
Undrafted out of Massachusetts, and he played three seasons in the American League before an NHL job at 26.
98 games and 25 points. He is 27, and a 41.3 per cent chance share with a 17.6 per cent shooting percentage is the definition of a player whose next season will look nothing like his last.
The numbers underneath
On the ice
Five-on-five, 2024-25 · 686 minutes
- Expected goals
- 41.3%
- 4th pct
- Shot attempts
- 44.2%
- 9th pct
share of the chances while he was out there
share of the attempts while he was out there
Goals while he was on the ice: 38 for, 24 against. Expected: 21.1 and 30.0.
The eye and the numbers
HindsightThe report ranks him 21 points above where the numbers do. It was written for a back edition, with the seasons that followed already known. Neither the agreement nor the gap says anything about the eye, and this report is excluded from the club-level comparison for the same reason. Why the numbers land there sets out the club he did it on, the minutes he played and the men he played them with.
Both bars are percentiles among the 637 skaters in this edition with a report and enough ice time. The report bar ranks the mean of the grades above — 68 on their own scale — against every other report's mean. The numbers bar ranks his share of expected goals. A gap is a disagreement about where he belongs, not two scales talking past each other.
Usual linemates
2024-25 · 686 minutes at five-on-five
- Nick Paul45%
Share of his five-on-five ice time spent alongside each player, measured from shift charts. Special teams are excluded: a power-play unit is not a line.
Why the numbers land there
Five-on-five, 2024-25
- The club
- TBL took 50.8% of the expected goals as a club. His own share is 41.3% — 9.5 below the club he did it on.
- The role
- Fourth line, 686 minutes at five-on-five — 27th percentile in ice time.
With and without
| Teammate | Together | Him apart | Mate apart |
|---|---|---|---|
| Nick Paul | 42.8% | 40.0% | 50.4% |
| Emil Lilleberg | 39.8% | 42.1% | 51.2% |
| Gage Goncalves | 43.3% | 40.4% | 52.0% |
42.8% together, 40.0% for him apart and 50.4% for Paul apart. Paul was better away from him while his own share held, which is a mark against him more than for him.
Expected-goal share while both were on the ice, and for each man in the minutes he played without the other. Apart is the pair subtracted from his own totals. It does not settle who was carrying whom — apart from each other, both were still playing with somebody — but it does say whether the share travelled when the pairing broke up.
Where he shoots from
goal on goal missed
97 unblocked shots in 2024-25, 12 of them goals. His median goal came from 15 feet. 46% of his shots came from inside twenty feet, 12% from beyond forty.