Minnesota Wild forward Marco Rossi has emerged into one of the top trade chips in the National Hockey League ahead of free agency next month — and there are no shortage of suitors for the Austrian’s services.
As The Athletic’s Pierre LeBrun reported on Wednesday, there are two Canadian teams currently targeting the 23-year-old.
“The Calgary Flames, the Vancouver Canucks and the Montreal Canadiens are among the Canadian teams looking for a young No. 2 center, but I would say among those three, the Canucks have the most interest in Wild center Marco Rossi,” wrote the hockey insider. “The Flames have mild interest (they would rather get a center with more size), and I don’t think the Habs are on that very much at all.”
Rossi and the Wild are at a crossroads, with the pending restricted free agent looking for a contract that Minnesota GM Bill Guerin just doesn’t seem to be willing to pay.
Guerin said last week that, although the Wild would prefer to keep Rossi around and see him as an asset, they’re going to have to continue attempting to bride the financial differences. And Rossi’s agent has already shut down the idea of a bridge deal after his client was relegated to the fourth line in the 2025 Stanley Cup Playoffs.
Rossi’s camp already turned down a five-year, $25 million offer a few months ago, and there’s no indication Guerin is going to give the undersized forward what he’s looking for — a contract with a near $7 million AAV.
“I think sometimes you just have disagreements on where a player is at, and that’s fine,” Guerin said last week. “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.”
Canucks seem to be the frontrunner for Marco Rossi
There aren’t too many teams who could use an effective 2C more than the Canucks, who are expecting to lose Pius Suter in free agency. As The Athletic’s Thomas Drance reported, Rossi could be a strong fit in British Columbia.
“The Canucks’ most urgent need this summer, explicitly, is a ‘top-two-lines center.’ That’s a description that applies in straightforward fashion to Rossi, both in terms of deployment and production,” wrote Drance.
“Honestly, the opportunity to add a 23-year-old pivot who led all Wild centers in five-on-five ice time during the regular season and produced 60 points seems almost too good to be true from a Canucks perspective. It’s exactly the sort of player this club requires to bolster its center talent in the wake of last season’s J.T. Miller trade.”
At this point, it seems like only a matter of time before the former 60-point scorer is shipped out of the State of Hockey. It’ll be interesting to see if a trade gets over the finish line — and what Rossi’s next contract ends up looking like.
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