{"id":732694,"date":"2026-06-12T21:59:08","date_gmt":"2026-06-12T21:59:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/732694\/"},"modified":"2026-06-12T21:59:08","modified_gmt":"2026-06-12T21:59:08","slug":"chatfield-has-climbed-from-unsung-free-agent-to-cusp-of-cup-with-hurricanes","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/732694\/","title":{"rendered":"Chatfield has climbed from unsung free agent to cusp of Cup with Hurricanes"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Coach Rod Brind\u2019Amour watched Chatfield arrive as an unheralded free agent in 2021-22 with 18 games of NHL experience &#8212; with the Vancouver Canucks the previous season &#8212; on his resume.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Chatfield played 16 NHL games that first season in Carolina, trying to fit into a veteran defense group when he was up, and getting more seasoning in the American Hockey League.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>He has continued to gain more and more trust from the Hurricanes along the way, his ice time increasing to 20:08 a game this season, fourth on the team.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI\u2019ve watched him when we put him into the organization, I didn&#8217;t really know him,\u201d Brind\u2019Amour said. \u201cBut then we had a couple of years watching him in the minors and (he) gradually get better and better.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>\u201cYou root for guys like that. Everything they have now, they&#8217;ve worked for and I think he&#8217;s still getting better. But yeah, I mean, it&#8217;s gratifying to watch a kid put in the work and then have it pay off.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The song Brind\u2019Amour is singing has been sung by almost everyone that has intersected with Chatfield on a hockey rink.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.nhl.com\/player\/michael-dipietro-8480022\" title=\"Michael DiPietro\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Michael DiPietro<\/a> met Chatfield when the two were teenagers. Each played for Windsor of the Ontario Hockey League; DiPietro the highly-touted goalie, Chatfield the walk-on defenseman from Ypsilanti, Michigan, fighting for minutes after not being drafted by an OHL team.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>By the time they were done with their junior careers, DiPietro had been drafted by the Vancouver Canucks and Chatfield had worked his way up to co-captain. They won the Memorial Cup together as the host team in 2017. \u00a0 \u00a0<\/p>\n<p>\u201cHe never really got the credit he deserved,\u201d said DiPietro, the No. 1 goalie for Providence of the American Hockey League this season. \u201cHe was reliable and steady and he has great speed. I\u2019ll tell you, he saved my bacon a few times.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>That\u2019s why he was happy to be reunited with Chatfield in 2019-20 in Utica, N.Y. DiPietro had been sent there for some seasoning in the AHL. Chatfield, who was passed over in the NHL Draft, had signed with the Canucks as a free agent and was cutting his teeth as a pro player.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Coach Rod Brind\u2019Amour watched Chatfield arrive as an unheralded free agent in 2021-22 with 18 games of NHL&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":732695,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[556],"tags":[64,63,575,85],"class_list":["post-732694","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nhl","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-nhl","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/732694","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=732694"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/732694\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/732695"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=732694"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=732694"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=732694"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}