Wild and Marco Rossi remain at contract impasse as trade possibilities emerge: ‘Only time will tell'
Teams have started to call the Minnesota Wild about restricted free agent Marco Rossi, but even with negotiations on a new contract going nowhere, Wild president of hockey operations and general manager Bill Guerin said Sunday he's not 'dying' to trade the 23-year-old center.
That doesn't mean he won't, of course.
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Guerin made clear during a conversation with The Athletic that there's a certain price point he's willing to go to in contract talks with Rossi — and, so far, Rossi's ask has been significantly higher. The Wild have made two contract offers — five years, $25 million in the winter, per league sources, and a shorter-term offer last week.
While the five-year offer had previously been rejected (after a bridge counter the Wild didn't agree to), Rossi's camp has not yet countered the Wild's recent bridge offer. The sides are expected to speak again this coming week.
However, given that Rossi received the third-lowest ice time of any Wild player in the playoffs (11:08 per game) with most of his even-strength shifts on the fourth line, it's very unlikely now that Rossi would accept a bridge deal and risk being deployed in the bottom-six during the term of his next contract. After the season, he said he was 'very disappointed' with how the Wild utilized him in their playoffs.
'I think sometimes you just have disagreements on where a player is at, and that's fine,' Guerin said. 'And sometimes it takes a little while longer to work through things. But out there, there's this belief that we don't like him or we're going to trade him.
'And look, he's no different than any other player. If we can make our team better by trading someone, we're going to do it. But that doesn't mean we don't like the player. And Marco is a player that we like. He had a good season again. So I don't know where all this is coming from. … Marco's a good player.'
THAT'S A WILD OT WIN! 🤩
Marco Rossi wins it for the @mnwild in @Energizer overtime! pic.twitter.com/JxX3e61bVh
— NHL (@NHL) April 6, 2025
Rossi ranks No. 2 on The Athletic's Chris Johnston's offseason trade board.
He is ineligible for salary arbitration, which would have provided a one- or two-year term, but is eligible to sign an offer sheet with 31 other teams as early as July 1. So there is a pressure point for the Wild to potentially trade Rossi if a contract isn't agreed upon this month.
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'There clearly is a difference of opinion with respect to Marco's value,' Rossi's agent, Ian Pulver, told The Athletic on Sunday. 'We will continue in good faith to engage the Wild to attempt to reach resolution. We understand that Billy likes Marco, but for how much? And in what role going forward? (That) is the subject of great debate.
'Like the Wild, we believe we have advanced very fair and reasonable contract proposals. What the future holds for Marco and the Wild, only time will tell.'
Guerin categorized the Wild's two contract offers to Rossi as 'significant.'
'They don't like it,' Guerin said. 'And that's fine. This is not a knock on them. They feel he's of more value. But to say I don't like him, if you knew what the value of what those contract offers were, you'd say, 'Oh, he definitely likes him and wants to keep him.''
The Wild's five-year contract offer to Rossi for a $5 million average annual value is in line with Florida Panthers center Anton Lundell and Washington Capitals center Dylan Strome.
Rossi, on a seven- or eight-year term, is likely looking at comparables like the Ottawa Senators' Dylan Cozens ($7.1 million), Buffalo Sabres' Josh Norris ($7.95 million) and the Wild's Matt Boldy, who signed a seven-year, $49 million extension in January 2023.
Rossi, the ninth pick in the 2020 draft, followed a 21-goal, 40-point season during his first full year in the NHL with a career-high 24 goals and 60 points last season. At five-on-five, he was on the ice for 56 goals compared to Boldy's 50 and 43 goals against compared to Boldy's 44.
Overall, Boldy followed a 15-goal, 39-point rookie year in just 47 games with 31 goals and 63 points in 2022-23, 29 goals and 69 points in 2023-24 and 27 goals and 73 points last season. Boldy averaged nearly two minutes more per game the past two years than Rossi.
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Calgary Flames 22-year-old winger Matthew Coronato recently signed a seven-year contract worth $6.5 million. It's hard to imagine Rossi agreeing to any long-term deal for less than that, but so far the Wild have shown no appetite to go anywhere in the vicinity.
On a three-year term, Evolving-Hockey estimates Rossi is a $5.262 million player this summer. On a five-year term, the site has him at $6.067 million. On a seven-year term, it's at $6.688 million.
For being undersized, Rossi doesn't shy away from going to the dirty areas. According to NHL Edge player- and puck-tracking data, 67 of his 136 shots were from the high-danger area (92nd percentile in the NHL), as were 18 of his 24 goals (94th percentile).
Guerin denied a report from DailyFaceoff that he asked Philadelphia for Tyson Foerster or one of the Flyers' late first-round picks in a trade for Rossi, saying, 'I've talked to lots of teams about lots of players — not just Marco — and names come up all the time, but there's never been any serious discussion with anybody yet.'
The Flyers are in the market for a second-line center, as are teams like the Vancouver Canucks, Sabres, Carolina Hurricanes, Flames and Montreal Canadiens.
Asked if he's gotten much interest so far in Rossi, Guerin said, 'Yeah, teams see this stuff written and they call, but like I said, Marco's a good player and I'm not interested in making our team worse or postponing our team being better. So I'm not dying to get rid of Marco. That's the bottom line.'
Most trades this month happen around the draft, which is June 27 and 28, but Guerin indicated he could be active much sooner.
'If we ever did something, I don't have to wait for the draft or anything,' he said. 'But again, that's not for Marco. That's for anybody.'
This is a big offseason for the Wild, who are finally unshackled from a majority of the buyout pain for Zach Parise and Ryan Suter.
Guerin reiterated Sunday that he is confident the Wild will be able to sign Kirill Kaprizov to a contract extension this summer and said he also will be looking at potentially external additions via free agency or trying to make bold moves via trade. He wants to upgrade the center position this offseason and potentially add a scoring winger.
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One current Wild unrestricted free agent that the Wild may re-sign is veteran left wing Marcus Johansson if they can get the 34-year-old on a significant haircut to his recently expired two-year, $4 million contract. He could be open to returning on an inexpensive contract. In his second stint with the Wild, Johansson has scored 28 goals and 82 points in 170 games.
The Wild also plan to tender defenseman Declan Chisholm a qualifying offer if they can't re-sign the restricted free agent before July 1.
(Photo of Marco Rossi: Sergei Belski / Imagn Images)
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