Article: NHL Insider Confident No One Will Offer Sheet Marco Rossi

[Thomas Williams]

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[Imyourhuckleberry]

Frank Seravalli saying what a number of us here have been saying for weeks. Edmonton losing a couple of guys last year doesn't change the fact that it's rare for offer sheets to get signed. That was a unique situation where they were really up against the cap and the St. Louis GM didn't care for the Edmonton GM, so felt inclined to take advantage of the situation. Also, the NHL does not seem to place the market for Rossi at $7M+, which is where teams would need to go in order for the Wild to consider not matching the offer.

[Pewterschmidt]

So far bill seems to be managing this situation perfectly.  Hasn't overpaid Rossi and apparently has a good sense for his market value around the league.  If we can get Rossi on a reasonable, short term bridge deal that keeps him tradeable down the road, then bill is managing the asset correctly.

#rarebillcompliment

[Scalptrash]

The teams that would normally be interested will be tanking for a chance of getting McKenna (i.e. Chicago). They don't want to get better and they want to hold onto their assets for flexibility. Just a bad year in general to be Rossi.

He should hold out and demand a trade for the way the Wild have treated him.

[mnfaninnc]

17 minutes ago, Scalptrash said:

He should hold out and demand a trade for the way the Wild have treated him.

What good would this do him? There are 31 other GMs around the league. Most, and by most I mean heavily skewed to this opinion, GMs are already skeptical of paying a short guy a lot of money. They equate short with small and that is not the case with Rossi. 

Shooter let it be known that Rossi could be had. Last season and this season, no serious offers have come in matching his talent. Shooter has done well to not bite on an inferior offer and just play him again. 

Demanding a trade, even publicly, could fall on deaf ears. Holding out is something that seals the deal for the other GMs (we don't want that attitude in our locker room). The biggest issue here is that Rossi has no other avenue in which to leverage the negotiating table. It's offersheet or bust. Perhaps other GMs have a number and are waiting for the Wild to have less cap space than that number. I believe that number is closer to $5m than $7m. It will be matched immediately here unless we acquire, say, a Panarin in the offseason and have no money to defend against an offersheet. 

Seravalli's number of a successful offersheet for Rossi was $9.5-10m. That's a serious overpay, and Rossi might hit that value in year 4 of a 5 year deal. This is not good for him. I suspect that number is $7.03m, or, Mason McTavish. 

Apparently, McTavish's beef is role. He doesn't see the Ducks keeping him in the top 6 center role. He'd be perfect here in that role. So we've got 1 player worried about his role, and another player worried more about the size and length of his next contract. The Ducks have plenty of cap. Would they be willing to pay Rossi? I think the actual fit of a deal between these 2 clubs is probably a win-win for both teams. I also think Verbeek and Guerin have a relationship since their playing days and could easily do this. 

[0 Stanley Cups]

We shouldn't want to trade Rossi down the road, we should want to keep him on the team, otherwise why did BG draft him at 9th knowing his size, draft someone else, especially a center.  Yurov is our only other legit center prospect and he's a total question mark right now.

Seven years and BG still can't address the lack of center depth.  Patience and confidence is running thin with BG.  Rossi shouldn't sign more than a 2 year deal.

[MrCheatachu]

1 hour ago, Pewterschmidt said:

So far bill seems to be managing this situation perfectly.

Hey Pea-Shooter, it appears that someone has hacked your account...

[Scalptrash]

8 minutes ago, 0 Stanley Cups said:

We shouldn't want to trade Rossi down the road, we should want to keep him on the team, otherwise why did BG draft him at 9th knowing his size, draft someone else, especially a center.  Yurov is our only other legit center prospect and he's a total question mark right now.

Seven years and BG still can't address the lack of center depth.  Patience and confidence is running thin with BG.  Rossi shouldn't sign more than a 2 year deal.

They draft best available with every pick, if for nothing else than trade assets. They are still drafting small players every draft. The size argument has gotten completely blown out of proportion. Kirill and Zuccarello are the same size as Rossi and nobody says they are too small. Granted, you want your centers to be bigger than smaller, but there have been several successful centers in the NHL that are Rossi's size.

You could argue that weight and strength are more important than height. A lower center of gravity is a benefit. These are not quarterbacks that can't see over their linemen!

[Pewterschmidt]

20 minutes ago, MrCheatachu said:

Hey Pea-Shooter, it appears that someone has hacked your account...

It was a moment of weakness. It won't happen again. 

[Rutters91]

4 hours ago, Scalptrash said:

The teams that would normally be interested will be tanking for a chance of getting McKenna (i.e. Chicago). They don't want to get better and they want to hold onto their assets for flexibility. Just a bad year in general to be Rossi.

He should hold out and demand a trade for the way the Wild have treated him.

Id be very surprised if Rossi holds out. For starters thats not his character and a hold out would be just as bad for him as it would be the team.

[Pablo]

Rossi has an issue. All GMs are close to the cap and they wont be held hostage to one player that is pigeonholed early in his career. Rossi’s problem is of his own making. 

[Citizen Strife]

He and his agent probably have to deal with it.  Marco is a good player but not yet the irreplaceable piece the team cannot live without.  Those players are Kap, Ek, Boldy, Faber, and Brodin/Spurgeon (for a couple more years anyway).  I'm also starting to lean towards keeping Gus over Rossi if money gets tight.

There is reason to be annoyed for both sides: Rossi has proven a lot, but he is at best a complementary star on a good team who gets opportunistic offense.

There's no shame in that, but until he either gets 70-80 points like Boldy or finds an Ek level gear defensively, there's reasons to quib Le about handing out star money to a fringe star.

 

Edited 3 hours ago by Citizen Strife

[MrCheatachu]

7 minutes ago, Citizen Strife said:

I'm also starting to lean towards keeping Gus over Rossi if money gets tight.

Imagine traveling back in time to last summer and making that statement.

[Willy the poor boy]

25 minutes ago, Citizen Strife said:

He and his agent probably have to deal with it.  Marco is a good player but not yet the irreplaceable piece the team cannot live without.  Those players are Kap, Ek, Boldy, Faber, and Brodin/Spurgeon (for a couple more years anyway).  I'm also starting to lean towards keeping Gus over Rossi if money gets tight.

There is reason to be annoyed for both sides: Rossi has proven a lot, but he is at best a complementary star on a good team who gets opportunistic offense.

There's no shame in that, but until he either gets 70-80 points like Boldy or finds an Ek level gear defensively, there's reasons to quib Le about handing out star money to a fringe star.

 

 

18 minutes ago, MrCheatachu said:

Imagine traveling back in time to last summer and making that statement.

Until last year or two most everyone wanted to trade Boldy also... Fans get entirely to antsy. They wanted to get rid Sturm then, and now it's great to have him back on the team, and 1 or 2 months into the season they'll want to trade him for one of the  Tkachuck's.

[mnfaninnc]

More national news on the Rossi front:

Quote

The Wild and Rossi’s camp haven’t had talks since early June, per league sources... With no offer sheets coming, at least for now, this might be a waiting game until the next pressure point in negotiations — the start of training camp in mid-September.

An offer sheet, in fact, is likely not coming at all, according to a report we shared recently from insider Frank Seravalli. 

"It’s almost like Guerin, who vowed to match any offer sheet, was playing a game of chicken to show Rossi’s camp that he didn’t buy that this threat was a real threat. And to this juncture, at least, he’s been right," write Smith & Russo.

AFP Analytics has projected the 5'9" center to command a seven-year deal on his next contract with a $7.4M AAV. That might be a little high, and the Wild have no intentions of going there. A short-term bridge deal, suggests the analytics firm, would likely run two years at $4.5M per. 

Here's the thing, Rossi has demands, Shooter has demands. Shooter played this right by not doing anything. He doesn't need to do anything. He hasn't spoken since June because there's nothing to talk about. He doesn't believe Rossi is worth 7 x $7m at this time, and so far, the offersheets are proving him right. 

There also is no incentive for Shooter to budge. Without an offersheet, Rossi has 1% leverage (holding out) which would torpedo his NHL career. The very best thing that Rossi can do is also wait until right before training camp, bulk up to the point where Shooter can trust him, and come back into negotiations willing to take the 2 year bridge which will be south of $5m. 

From Shooter's perspective, he can try to convince Verbeek to trade McTavish for Rossi or just wait for camp. But, the puck is in Rossi's corner for a deal now.

[Pewterschmidt]

22 minutes ago, Willy the poor boy said:

Until last year or two most everyone wanted to trade Boldy also... Fans get entirely to antsy. They wanted to get rid Sturm then

The trade Boldy chatter a year ago was re-donk-u-lous.  

Re: Sturm - absence has made the heart grow fonder.  By January all the usual suspects will be wishing Fred "passenger with a check'd bag" Gudjro was back after watching a few months of Nico "(Nick Bjugstad light * Tyler Enis) / Chuck Kobasew" Sturmdazzle

But P-Snuffleufagus, what about his FO% with the Sharks.  I'll predict he's at 50.5% this upcoming season.

I'm so sick of watching bill march out the same warmed-over group of 1-and-done noodles.

#Dogdays