Oct. 28: Chaffee has cleared waivers and can now be assigned to Syracuse, per Friedman.
Oct. 27: According to Sportsnet’s Elliotte Friedman, the Tampa Bay Lightning have placed forward Mitchell Chaffee on waivers. If he clears by tomorrow, the Lightning will have more flexibility with Chaffee since he’ll be waiver exempt for the next 10 days or 30 games, or they’ll gain the ability to reassign him to the AHL’s Syracuse Crunch.
It marks the second time in Chaffee’s young career that he’s been placed on the waiver wire. Before the start of the 2023-24 campaign, the Lightning placed Chaffee on waivers after he failed to make the roster out of training camp, and he cleared without any issue.
Unlike the 2023-24 campaign, there were higher expectations for the Rockford, MI native this year. Despite being relegated to Tampa Bay’s bottom-six for most of his playing time, he finished eighth on the team in goal-scoring last year with 12 in 66 games. He was additionally one of the Lightning’s most physical forwards, finishing second up front with 133 hits.
Again in a bottom-six role, Chaffee has gone scoreless through seven contests this season, averaging 9:29 of ice time per game. He leads the team in hits by a healthy margin, but has been benched for the team’s two most recent games.
Given his play to begin the 2025-26 campaign, it’s unlikely another team will put a claim on Chaffee over the next 24 hours. Still, for teams looking for some additional scoring punch in their bottom-six (looking at you, Calgary Flames), his 15-goal pace from last season may be enticing.
A little surprised by this decision of putting Mitchell Chaffee on waivers. I guess Jon Cooper and staff are not overly pleased by his performance so far into the season. I’ve actually liked Chaffee’s physicality, energy and tenaciousness this season. No, he hasn’t scored yet but the team in general has been surprisingly slow in the scoring department to start the season, though, it seems to be gaining a little bit of steam in these recent few games. Granted, it’s not at the firepower of last season yet.
Obviously, they also need to put someone down to create roster space because of Nick Paul nearing a return in early November.
P.S. It could also be a move for the returning Max Crozier as well. I forgot to mention.
What did your firepower of last season get you? Early summer vacation for the third consecutive year( second time at the hands of the two time Stanley Cup Champions Cats)