{"id":45681,"date":"2025-07-29T18:33:17","date_gmt":"2025-07-29T18:33:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/45681\/"},"modified":"2025-07-29T18:33:17","modified_gmt":"2025-07-29T18:33:17","slug":"will-marco-rossi-return-to-the-wild","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/45681\/","title":{"rendered":"Will Marco Rossi Return To The Wild?"},"content":{"rendered":"

The trade market has been slower than predicted since draft day. There have been some notable RFA names changing hands, K\u2019Andre Miller<\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0Nicolas Hague<\/a>\u00a0among them, but others who were tabbed as likely candidates to move amid a gap in contract talks ended up staying put.<\/p>\n

One of them is Wild center\u00a0Marco Rossi<\/a>, who remains unsigned and is beginning to see his name brought back to the forefront with most other summer business now settled. Multiple reports in the last few days have indicated there\u2019s been no contract dialogue between Rossi\u2019s camp and the Minnesota front office<\/a> since June. That was something Rossi was okay with as he waited for a competitive offer sheet to come in and speed the sign (or trade) process along, but no deal ever came.<\/p>\n

While there was considerable trade interest in Rossi\u2019s signing rights earlier in the offseason, teams were reportedly put off by Rossi\u2019s desire for a long-term deal in the $7MM range annually. Wild general manager\u00a0Bill Guerin<\/a>, staunchly unwilling to dole out that money, has since had his value assessment of Rossi backed up by loads of other teams, as Rossi can\u2019t find the contract he desires.<\/p>\n

In most cases, this would lead a player to acquiesce to a bridge deal and try to meet their financial hopes again in a year or two. But if Rossi signs a short-term contract with the Wild, there are two significant risks he\u2019s opening himself up to that have been discussed at length in the last couple of months. Not only could a bridge deal facilitate a trade for Rossi, who\u2019s ineligible for any protection, to a team he doesn\u2019t want to go to, it could also damage his future earning potential if he feels he doesn\u2019t get advantageous deployment.<\/p>\n

The latter is a legitimate concern after how the 2024-25 season ended. The diminutive but skilled 23-year-old center looked at home in a top-six role in the regular season, averaging 18:15 per game and notching 60 points in 82 appearances as Minnesota\u2019s top-line anchor for most of the year. His minutes were slashed in the Wild\u2019s first-round loss to the Golden Knights, though, seeing fourth-line deployment in just over 11 minutes per game. He still managed a pair of goals and an assist in the six-game defeat, with both tallies coming at even strength.<\/p>\n

Understandably, that left a sour taste in Rossi\u2019s mouth after a regular season in which he proved he can be a capable top-six producer. The 2020 No. 9 overall pick has next to no leverage in his current situation, though. With Guerin content to continue holding pat in the Wild\u2019s position, there\u2019s no incentive for him to trade Rossi unless someone offers a piece he feels improves their roster composition immediately. Since those offers haven\u2019t come so far, there\u2019s little reason to believe they will now, especially with reporting on that front remaining quiet.<\/p>\n

That leaves the Austrian forward completely at the mercy of someone tendering an offer sheet. It\u2019s still a legitimate possibility, even if it\u2019s not an overwhelmingly likely one. The Blues\u2019 dual offer sheets to Oilers RFAs\u00a0Philip Broberg<\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0Dylan Holloway<\/a>\u00a0last year didn\u2019t come until mid-August. Doing so would also permit a team to surrender only draft picks to bring in Rossi, a package the Wild wouldn\u2019t be thrilled to accept in a trade as they look to remain playoff contenders and help their case to convince superstar pending UFA Kirill Kaprizov<\/a>\u00a0not to test the open market next summer.<\/p>\n

Minnesota could still match that offer sheet, though, leaving Rossi in a position where he\u2019ll likely only sign one if it\u2019s reasonably close to his initial ask. Since those offers haven\u2019t been there in trade talks, why would they be there now?<\/p>\n

With no resolution in sight, we\u2019re asking PHR readers how they think things will play out between the two sides. Vote in our poll below:<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

If you can\u2019t see the poll, click here to vote<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The trade market has been slower than predicted since draft day. There have been some notable RFA names…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":45682,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[66],"tags":[5698,4828,385,6394,5627,99],"class_list":{"0":"post-45681","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-nhl","8":"tag-marco-rossi","9":"tag-minnesota-wild","10":"tag-nhl","11":"tag-polls","12":"tag-pro-hockey-rumors-originals","13":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/45681","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=45681"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/45681\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/45682"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=45681"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=45681"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=45681"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}