Chaffee makes leap of faith in search of latest opportunity

Mitchell Chaffee hasn't spent much time in the State of Hockey, but once his junior season at the University of Massachusetts came to an end last month, taking up residence here quickly became an option.

Chaffee would end up committing to Minnesota as a college free agent, sight unseen, thanks to his confidence and a relationship with Wild GM Bill Guerin that was actually forged two summers ago, when he was an invitee at the Pittsburgh Penguins development camp.

"I met him there and I really liked his philosophy and style of 'you get what you deserve,'" Chaffee said. "Nothing was going to be given to you and you'd have to work for everything you got."

That ethos has been one that has carried Chaffee from midget hockey in Michigan, his homestate, to the United States Hockey League and through college.

Chaffee was never a big-time scorer in the USHL, where he played a season and a half with the Bloomington Thunder before a mid-season trade to the Fargo Force in 2016-17. In 103 career games over two years in the league, he tallied just 15 goals and 29 points.

Still, he was getting attention from college coaches, most notably, Ben Barr, then the associate head coach at Western Michigan University.

Barr tried hard to get Chaffee to attend WMU, located just a 50-mile drive from his hometown of Grand Rapids, Michigan, but could never close the deal.

Like his leap of faith in Minnesota, Chaffee, a big, strapping right winger like Guerin was during his career, took one when it came to his college decision as well.

"I wasn't able to get him to Western, but when we came to Massachusetts, he was still available and I called him up," said Barr, a Faribault native who played prep hockey with Wild forward Zach Parise at Shattuck-St. Mary's. "He didn't even know where the University of Massachusetts was. He hadn't really heard of us and our program really wasn't relevant at that time. But I think he understood that it was a really great opportunity for him.

"He came here and took advantage of that opportunity for three years, which is a huge credit to him."

An opportunity was one thing that was high on Chaffee's wish list. Still young enough to return to the USHL for a third season, one which Barr believes might have delivered the type of offensive numbers typically associated with big-time professional prospects, Chaffee decided to head to Amherst and join a club that had won just five games the year prior.

"There's always these cases of guys who come out of nowhere and end up being NHL players, who at 18, 19 or 20, weren't great junior players or even great college players," Barr said. "I think sometimes, it can be harder to be a good player in the USHL than it can be in college. There's only 16 teams and you're taking all the best talent from the United States. Now there's a lot of Euros in that league, there's Canadians in that league. You're taking all these high-end, college-committed players and you're dispersing three or four birth years over 16 teams.

"In college, you're taking four birth years and dispersing it over 60 teams. I've worked at four schools, and I've seen players like Mitch where, in college, they're finally getting that opportunity that maybe they never did in the USHL.

Presented that opportunity, it was up to Chaffee to take advantage of it.

The immediate result was a 13-goal, 24-point freshman campaign that surprised even Chaffee's most ardent believers.

"I don't think he was ever put in a situation [in the USHL] where he was 'The Man,'" Barr said. "His teams didn't need him to be that, but we needed him to be that for us right away. And he was.

"But he took advantage of an opportunity. He got put right in there. He scored in like his first or his second game and he never really slowed down, he just went with it. His whole first year, our staff was just wondering, 'is he going to keep this up?' because he was playing like a junior or a senior."

Chaffee was one of the team's leading scorers that season, a group that had few upperclassmen that were big-time contributors. The Minutemen also won 12 more games in 2017-18 than the year before Chaffee's arrival.

That summer, Chaffee was invited to his first development camp in Pittsburgh, where he met Guerin.

But his impact freshman season was a preview of what was to come.

As a sophomore, Chaffee was one of the top players in all of college hockey, scoring 18 goals and 42 points. He was a first-team All-American, was a first-team All-Star in Hockey East and won the conference's scoring title.

Along with current Avalanche defenseman Cale Makar, Chaffee led the Minutemen to 31 wins. They advanced to the NCAA Championship game for the first time in school history, losing to Minnesota Duluth 3-0.

Makar, Chaffee's roommate at UMass, won the Hobey Baker Award as college hockey's best player that weekend, then signed with the Avs following the title game loss, jumping right into Colorado's lineup in the Stanley Cup Playoffs, scoring the game-winning goal in his first NHL game.

Chaffee had an opportunity to leave too, but was eager for a chance to return and take on a greater leadership role with the Minutemen this season.

With expectations sky high, UMass won 21 games before the college season was paused, then cancelled, and the Minutemen were poised to reach the NCAA Tournament for a second consecutive season, another accomplishment that had never been achieved at the school.

"It was a lot on our upper-classmen to show up and lead every day," Chaffee said. "Everyone had to step up and fill that role with Cale leaving, but I don't think any of us really felt that Cale leaving would drastically change our team and how high of a standard we had."

A couple of weeks later, Chaffee signed with the Wild in search of his latest opportunity. One of his first congratulatory calls came from Makar, who playfully jabbed his former teammate for signing with another Central Division club.

"He said he was looking forward to hitting me," Chaffee said. "It'll be fun to see him in the future."

Like Barr, Makar is a believer in what the Wild have in Chaffee.

"He was one of my best buddies at UMass. He is a competitive person who leads by example both on and off the ice," Makar said. "He is a complete player that I believe has all the assets to become successful at the pro level."

"I think his game is going to translate to the next level, I really do," Barr said. "How long that takes will depend on the kind of opportunity he gets and what he does with that opportunity."

Related:

• Video: Highlights: Mitchell Chaffee