The NHL Draft starts this Wednesday, June 28. Chase Cheslock from Rogers, Minnesota hopes to be the fourth Rogers hockey player to have his named called at the NHL Draft.
Nick Jensen, Round 5, Detroit Red Wings
Logan Nelson, Round 5, Buffalo Sabres
Matt Hellickson, Round 7, New Jersey Devils

Cheslock is currently ranked No. 99 by NHL Central Scouting and if you want to scroll through the hundreds of NHL Mock Drafts you can find him being drafted just about anywhere. 

For Cheslock, it hasn't been all sunshine and rainbows throughout his journey. 

At the time of my hiring, I knew little about Rogers, other than they didn't have a Bantam AA team and the varsity team was struggling. The varsity recently rejoined AA hockey, but had only made it past the first round one time in and was on their fourth Head Coach in those 7 years. 

Mitch Becker was graduating and leaving the program in a do or die period with the youth showing some potential at the A and B1 levels.

I first met Cheslock for the first time at the end of 8th grade. I had been the Head Coach for Rogers for less than a week, but I was told immediately by a close friend that I needed to meet two eighth graders Chase Cheslock and Sam Ranallo. 

Entering my first year at Rogers, there were about a half dozen 9th graders that could've made the varsity team.  But the high school staff decided to pull three kids out of retirement and leave the six-plus freshmen to play Bantam AA hockey.

During my first meeting with Cheslock it was obvious that he was a high character individual based on the way he presented himself. Firm handshake, eyes wide open; his presence was rare for an 8th grader. 

We talked about a one-year, three-year and a five-year plan for the program and himself as a hockey player. I laid out my goals for the program and where I saw his potential, sight unseen at this point.

That winter Cheslock helped lead the Bantam AA team to the State Tournament in 2020, finding Ranallo backdoor with under a minute to play against Minnetonka. Unfortunately, this is where the real ups and downs begin. The State tournament was canceled the morning of our first game against Hermantown due to Covid.

High Performance was canceled his 16’s year, a decent chance at gaging where he fits amongst his peers. Notice I didn’t say a chance at exposure, because it’s a marathon, not a sprint. Needless to say Cheslock was not a Phase I USHL draft pick.

Rinks re-opened around June of 2020. Cheslock was one of the few that came into summer camp in shape that spring.

Cheslock and I have shared a bench for around 175 games. It’s been a journey. Playing for the same coach for more than one season isn’t always easy, let alone for over four years. He challenged me more than any other player in my 10-plus years of coaching. He is as intense as myself.

He’s the first one to the rink. Last one to leave. First one on the ice. He never misses a workout. Never needs to have his hand held. Never needs to be asked to go above and beyond. He’s a 4.1 GPA student and has never received a complaint in the community, in the schools or from administration. If you can handle his intensity and enjoy pressure, he’s a coach’s dream.

He's always been a sponge and a student of the game. Always asking questions. On the way home from Faribault, Minnesota after tying Shattuck St. Mary’s 1-1 in the fall of 2020, I vividly remember him asking how to dominate a game like that one. Something he has done after hundreds of games. If we ever lost, he sat on the sword first and foremost.

My responses were typically simple, yet pointed, with maybe one or two small details. Typically confidence and composure early on. Less comparing.

'You have to get better, but don’t need to change much, stick to the process. One day at a time.'

The kid was already doing everything each day to become a great hockey player. Just needed to keep adding to his game. 

His first high school hockey game was against the Andover Huskies in 2020, the first Andover team to reach the X. We lost 6-3, University of Michigan commit and Waterloo Blackhawks forward Garrett Schifsky started his coming out party that game with a hat trick against us. (Schifsky, another late bloomer.) We lost 6-3, but showed a lot of fight and promise dressing 9 sophomores that night.

That season we were put into the “Lower side” of the Northwest Suburban Conference. So while the blue-bloods of Maple Grove, Andover and Centennial beat each other up two-three times that Covid shortened season, we only got to see them once. We scored 37 goals over the next four games, in what I would describe as the most bizarre season of coaching hockey ever. No fans, some teams had no interest in being there, rules on how you could practice, who you could dress, if you took a team bus or not, if you even had a team locker room, etc.

I truly think that team was one of the most special teams I have ever coached. We lost in double overtime to Roseau in the playoffs. We made it out of the first round for the first time. Seniors accepted lesser roles for sophomores such as Cheslock and Ranallo. It was a special team that showcased the Rogers culture of pressure, sacrifice, teamwork and relentlessness.

That 6-hour bus ride home from Roseau, he and I still talk about to this day.

Cheslock was voted unanimous captain following his sophomore season by his teammates, a rare accomplishment.  We were still in section 8AA so High Performance 17’s tryouts were that spring up in Bemidji.

Cheslock didn’t even make the section team, let alone Final 54’s, let alone National Camp, let alone USHL Phase II draft. Cut. He called me, upset. He just registered 23 points as a sophomore defenseman, which would be good for most 3-year varsity defensemen’s career.

I was speechless, dumbfounded, and possibly upset myself. Cheslock and I met the next day in the Rogers Activity Center lobby. We loaded up the LiveBarn of the tryout. And we watched. It wasn’t pretty. It’s hard to stand out with 75 other kids on the ice, it’s even harder if you don’t take the bull by the horns.

I called Jerr Johnson, the STMA Head Coach at the time. It was a short and simple conversation, "we know he had a good season, we’ve never seen him play, but he did not show in tryouts better than the other defenseman."

Covid season, no cross over from conference opponents to section opponents. And after watching LiveBarn, Jerr, who is a good friend of mine now, was not wrong.

For me it was frustrating. I had seen Chase for two seasons at this point. I had seen him train, practice, play, lead, win, dominate. All of it. His tryout wasn’t good. He admitted he thought he had no chance based on the evaluators' allegiances having no ties to Rogers program. But I think in hindsight a lot of that was limiting beliefs.  He needed to control what he can control, and just play.

Following getting cut from HP, Chase didn’t mail it in, didn’t take a week off, didn’t rest. He doubled down. To this day, I’ve never seen a kid train as hard as Chase did that offseason going into his junior season. He was going to leave no stone unturned.

He made it into the Minnesota High School Elite League heading into his junior season. Cheslock is a processor. He processed a lot that fall. Asked a lot of questions. Tried to learn each and every game. Cheslock tallied 2 goals and 10 assists in the Elite League before having what I would call his breakout season, 10 goals and 29 assists, leading the Rogers Royals to an undefeated NWSC Conference title and the program’s first ticket to a AA Section Final.

Colleges finally started calling.

He was named All-Metro Third Team. He was drafted in the 19th round by the Omaha Lancers in Phase II draft, but was not offered a before and after that summer. He elected to play a before with the St. Cloud Norsemen in the NAHL. And even appeared for the United State National Team Development Program in a game. He learned a lot about junior hockey, bus rides, and more.

At this point, he’s starting to draw a lot of interest from multiple colleges and even now NHL teams have started to take notice. Pressure has started to build. From being a Mr. Hockey Favorite, to wanting to make the State Tournament his senior year, along with being a captain, now add choosing a Division I college and being named to NHL Central Scouting to the list.

Everybody thinks this is all living a dream, but watching the family, the athlete and our program live it, it’s incredibly difficult, incredibly stressful, and lots of ups and downs. All that being said, it’s amazing what hard work, humility and character can do for one’s confidence. He took it all in stride.

Cheslock committed to the University of St. Thomas fall of his senior season, basing his decision off of more than just hockey. Academics, culture, character and everything that Chase stands for as a human. Also thinking, 'I helped build one powerhouse, why not build another one.'

He takes pride in his journey being the hard way. 

Cheslock finished his senior season winning the Reed Larson Award. This nomination is undoubtedly the easiest I’ve ever had to fill out.

The winner of the Reed Larson Award is based on the following criteria: academics, community/extra-curricular activities, citizenship, coachability and, of course, on-ice performance.

Academics: Check, exceeding expectations.

Community/extra-curricular activities: Check, exceeding expectations. (Played tennis his junior season to work on his athletic mobility.)

Citizenship: Check, exceeding expectations. ELITE human.

Coachability: Check, exceeding expectations. The kid walked into my office and told me how to play my team mid-game his junior season. Hardest worker. Most buy in. Leader. Winner. Learner.

On-ice performance: Enough said.

Cheslock was also a Mr. Hockey Finalist, 3-year All-Conference winner, First Team All-Metro, Herb Brooks Award winner, Minnesota Wild Captain Spotlight Nominee, and probably another 100 accolades he wasn’t chasing but received.

He finished his senior season in Omaha on one of the bottom teams in the USHL, sacrificing much of what was left of his already sacrificed senior year. He was able to watch his younger brother, Brock, lead his team back to the Bantam AA state tournament for the first time since Chase wore the "C."

Cheslock showed no issues this spring stepping into the USHL, earning more ice time by the game. I drove down to Waterloo to watch Chase play, and I got there for warmups. There he was, in warmups, working on the fundamentals, locked in, having fun, pursuing his dream.  

Losing to Maple Grove in the section final for the second year in a row was heart-breaking, especially seeing the pain and sadness in Chase’s eyes and some of his teammates. It will be hard to forget that feeling for however long I coach.  

Cheslock left it all in the sweater with the R on it and everything he gave to the program that night in Elk River. Unfortunately, Maple Grove broke up their first line and had a game-plan to try and attack us when Cheslock wasn’t shadowing Mr. Hockey Finalist, Elite human, high character and superstar Finn Brink.

Not a lot of people will see all that Cheslock brought to the table at Rogers. Whether it always being the first one to help out the Team Manager, always cleaning the locker room, and carrying the backup sticks after losing the section final; even helping coordinate practice plans and game-plans.

Cheslock reminds me of a hybrid between Zdeno Chara, Tom Brady, Michael Jordan and Brad Marchand. Intense, disciplined and highly motivated. A lot of NHL Scouts have asked about his tool kit and if he has NHL skill because he didn’t "load up" the stat sheet in high school.

Here’s what I’ll say about Chase: no, he did not try to go coast to coast every shift and no, he is not perfect. He shadowed and shutdown opposition's top scorers, he anchored the power play, he anchored the penalty kill, and he lead a team that had a mixture of mostly seniors and some highly skilled incoming sophomores.

He sacrificed more for Rogers hockey than anybody on the outside will ever know, personally and athletically.  He played the first half of this season with a broken wrist he suffered in a tryout scrimmage that he insisted on playing in Super Rink 5, a rink that a couple weeks prior he played for the NTDP in. He never made an excuse and never told anybody about the injury. Never missed a practice. Never missed a workout.

Playing with the pressure to win that Chase puts on himself, it’s no surprise he had some highs and lows offensively, but if you’ve ever seen him in practice, you know he has NHL skill. He’s supposed to play tougher, meaner, the NHL Scouts say, but he drilled a kid in the Prior Lake tournament and we blew our only third period lead in his three years with Rogers because they called a penalty on his hit. Balancing what was best for Chase and what was best for the team was no small task, but the choice for Chase was simple...he wanted the team/program to be successful with every decision. 

We won back-to-back undefeated Conference titles with Cheslock as a captain. We lost back-to-back games only once each season, all of which included a grueling road trip. He helped pave the way for the future of Rogers hockey. He's left a blueprint for success, on and off the ice.

Does he have weaknesses? Of course. So did Tom Brady.

Cheslock is a 6’3” defenseman that can skate like the wind and has the heart of a champion. If he gets drafted this week in the NHL, they'll be fortunate to have him the moment he's a part of their organization. 

And the best part of all, he will not stop working hard after he gets a taste of success.

In today's world of kids chasing the future over the present moment, social media and mental health, parent pressure, individual success over team success; it can be easy to see the negative side of sports.

However, Chase Cheslock epitomizes focusing on the present moment and sports in its most intrinsic form. He loves the game. He loves his team. He falls, he gets up. He never gives up and lives with consistency and discipline. And most importantly making those around him better. 

Chase Cheslock is Chasing Greatness.