Article: Why Did the Wild Commit To Brock Faber But Not Marco Rossi?

[Tom Schreier]

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[FredJohnson]

Now, they have a roster that looks a lot like their dead-cap teams.

Thank you!!

[MrCheatachu]

I'm a bit confused at the thesis of the article.  I'm not sure I understand what the conclusion/argument is?

If you look at the rates/game it sure looks like Faber's offensively performing on par with prior seasons.

Season	Team	GP	G	G/GP	A	A/GP	PTS	PTS/G	PIM	PIM/GP	SOG	SOG/GP	PPP	PPP/GP	HITS	HITS/GP	BKS	BKS/GP	FOW	FOW/GP
2025-2026	MIN	17	3	0.18	6	0.35	9	0.53	0	0.00	38	2.24	4	0.24	6	0.35	34	2.00	0	0.00
2024-2025	MIN	78	10	0.13	19	0.24	29	0.37	23	0.29	124	1.59	10	0.13	34	0.44	115	1.47	0	0.00
2023-2024	MIN	82	8	0.10	39	0.48	47	0.57	26	0.32	136	1.66	16	0.20	65	0.79	151	1.84	0	0.00

And our entire defensive core has looked pretty damn weak this season.  Brodin, Spurgeon, Middleton and Faber all look 'off.'

Brockli is still eating up major minutes while drawing hard opponents on a team that's currently struggling to generate offense:

But none of that currently answers why Fabes got paid, and Rossi got a bridge deal AND no other teams apparently expressing interests in his services.  The Flyers publicly stated that SillyG was asking for Foerster OR a late 1st round pick, which the Flyers said was too much... 

So what are we all missing?  In a league starved for centers, nobody is willing to open their wallets for the guy?

 

[Citizen Strife]

Uh...he did?

Guerin didn't just ship out Rossi at first trade offer.  Vancouver didn't offer anything valuable and Philly and Buffalo both said no.

Rossi signed his deal, and unless Guerin trades him, who cares?  They signed him and he's rewarded them by being their top offensive center so far.

Rossi isn't untradable, but he hasn't been left out to dry.  I swear sometimes we just want to fear monger for the sake of it.

 

[Dean]

Good article but I don’t see the Rossi rising star thing. . Faber I think most in nhl agree is a quality top 4 d man.  Rossi I don’t think the nhl agrees or do I that he’s a #1 center . Yes he’s a good player but imo not #1 on a contender. I have yet to see him being dominant against good teams. I haven’t seen the wild play good against good teams .  So they won a couple games against bad teams.  Rossi , kk and zuc weren’t doing anything special against a really bad team in Calgary . They were getting pinned in there own end because they are all to small to stop a cycle by rubbing a guy out on boards . I’ll take McKinnon, mcdavid   Eichel , bedard , Cooley , celebrini, Carlson , schieflie , byfield , Crosby malkin , mattews   Hughes , barkov , point , Thompson, etc. over Rossi all day long. Until he can matchup and produce in big games against these centers he’s just a good player on a mediocre team looking for a #1 center. Maybe he would be a #1 if he had a tkachuk on his wing  but I doubt it . Rossi is a good player but where he fits idk. . Not centering a top line for a small team trying to win a cup. So I’m fine with his contract . It makes him more valuable to trade for a # 1center hopefully. 

[Pewterschmidt]

2 minutes ago, Dean said:

Good article but I don’t see the Rossi rising star thing. . Faber I think most in nhl agree is a quality top 4 d man.  Rossi I don’t think the nhl agrees or do I that he’s a #1 center . Yes he’s a good player but imo not #1 on a contender. I have yet to see him being dominant against good teams. I haven’t seen the wild play good against good teams .  So they won a couple games against bad teams.  Rossi , kk and zuc weren’t doing anything special against a really bad team in Calgary . They were getting pinned in there own end because they are all to small to stop a cycle by rubbing a guy out on boards . I’ll take McKinnon, mcdavid   Eichel , bedard , Cooley , celebrini, Carlson , schieflie , byfield , Crosby malkin , mattews   Hughes , barkov , point , Thompson, etc. over Rossi all day long. Until he can matchup and produce in big games against these centers he’s just a good player on a mediocre team looking for a #1 center. Maybe he would be a #1 if he had a tkachuk on his wing  but I doubt it . Rossi is a good player but where he fits idk. . Not centering a top line for a small team trying to win a cup. So I’m fine with his contract . It makes him more valuable to trade for a # 1center hopefully. 

💣Dean truth bomb 💣 

[goenzoy]

1 hour ago, Dean said:

Rossi is a good player but where he fits idk. . Not centering a top line for a small team trying to win a cup. So I’m fine with his contract . It makes him more valuable to trade for a # 1center hopefully. 

With Rossi not turning into a 1C you are probably correct 

But why on earth you think that there is any GM out there offering a 1C in a trade for Rossi . Rossi in best case can bring a 2nd round pick and maybe a bottom 6 winger to spice it up 

[FredJohnson]

Why Did the Wild Commit To Brock Faber But Not Marco Rossi?

OCL didn't want to give a big contract to a foreigner. (Sarcasm)

[mnfaninnc]

I disagree with Dean's take, but not as you would think. This is not a good article, in fact it's a terrible one. Come on, Tom, you're a better writer than that. I really don't need to get into the specifics as Mr. Cheatachu has broken it down.

But, what this sounds like is a lot of bitching over a small guy not getting paid and a larger guy getting paid.

I'll just throw this one out for conversation: What if the Wild GM figured out that offering the young kids a bunch of money was counter productive to their development and hunger? 

Or this: What if Faber and Boldy were signed long term, because as GM, Guerin had a feel for the cap for the next 5 years and wanted to get them signed before the cap went up?

Or maybe it was fairly evident that Rossi had more holes in his game, his potential was to reach much higher, but still had a lot of work to do which is why you give someone a bridge in the 1st place.

To be fair, I did not like either of the long term deals, but they will age as team friendly deals. I do believe in the bridge and getting the big contact after year 5 of service. This is the way you hold salaries down internally so that you can afford other stuff. Whether or not the other stuff is good is irrelevant, it's that you can afford the other stuff. 

Rossi's contract appears easier to swallow after the Kaprizov signing, which may or may not have been bungled by management/ownership, but Rossi did put in the more work in the offseason, and came into camp a better physical player. He worked on details of his craft like taking draws along with the bulking up. Those things were not present when he was reportedly looking for $7m X 7. He was offered $5m X 5 before his stats went sideways in the last 1/4 of the year. $5m X 3 seems fair as we figure out what type of player he is. He's off to a terrific start, but he did that the last 2 years. The last 1/3 of the season will tell that story.

Now, what about Faber? Why does he get paid? It's very difficult to find an RHS stud who can eat minutes all season long the way Faber can. He was a rock in his freshman year until he played through a rib injury. He outscored his Gophers' career in each of the last 2 seasons. He's on pace to do it again. Faber seems like that kind of player who is clutch, he doesn't always rush the puck like Buium, but picks his spots and scores when it's needed. These kind of guys are rare. 

6'1" 200, which I doubt is not his actual weight right now, probably closer to 210, is not the reason he got paid. He got paid for being able to play competently almost half a game, and contribute offensively to boot. He doesn't get pushed around in his own end and can cover gaps at 60% of the ice. It's like having another Brodin back there who has offense. His intangibles are very good, and if there is an outside reason to sign him like that, it might be that he's a hometown kid. His contract looks like it will age very well. 

About his character. He called himself out which he will do from time to time, and after that, you could see the focus and effort go up a notch, just like changing gears on a manual transmission. To date, this has not happened with Rossi. He will not go out and dominate half a game. He won't dominate a 1/3rd of a game. What he will do is play competently in the top 6 and be a fine complimentary piece to a superstar wing. 

Where Dean and I do agree is that Rossi is a "fine" player. This is defined as less than elite but above good. Can he grow into a #1C? I would suggest that his ability to drive play and win faceoffs will likely be the deciding factors in that. Nobody cares if he's 5'9" if he can do that. But, he needs the weight to be able to do it. Watching him this year, a few times he has been able to get up under a guy and simply steal the puck. That's the kind of stuff I'd like to see consistently. It's a physical play without wiping a guy out into the boards. 

[Burnt Toast]

I’ve noticed a trend while following the Wild. Somebody makes an assumption about someone else’s motives. Said assumption gets reiterated by numerous podcasters, writers include assumptions in their articles. Maybe sometimes the assumptions are correct, definitely sometimes wrong and eventually almost always blown out of proportion. In the case of Rossi’s payday/future I’d say he’s a bit of a mystery still. He definitely is still improving. If he really was perceived around the league as a rising star he would have been offer sheeted IMO. 

[SkolWild73]

I read in these comments so many times that if Rossi was so good, how come he was not offer sheeted by someone or shown interest by other teams.  Does that mean players like Luke Hughes or Mason McTavish this year were not seen as great players because they were not offer sheeted either?  Or how about Moritz Seider, Lucas Raymond, Seth Jarvis, or Matthew Beniers last year? 

I would say all of these players were as good or better than Rossi when they were RFA's and none of them received anything from any other teams either.  Maybe, just maybe Rossi did not receive one because teams very rarely give offer sheets and it had nothing to do with his skill or perception from other teams in the league.

[mnfaninnc]

5 hours ago, SkolWild73 said:

Maybe, just maybe Rossi did not receive one because teams very rarely give offer sheets and it had nothing to do with his skill or perception from other teams in the league.

I'd like to take everyone back to the Sebastion Aho offersheet. What exactly did this accomplish for Montreal? The Montreal GM did not get Aho, in fact, he merely negotiated the contract for the Hurricanes, whereas the GM said thank you very much, matched, went on vacation for the summer.

Later, the Hurricanes GM did the same thing to a cap strapped Montreal team landing Kotkaniemi where Montreal also lost Danault in free agency as retribution for trying to steal Aho. Waddell then moved very skillfully and gave Kotkaniemi a 1 yr. high salary offer, and then negotiated a lower cap long term deal. 

In the case of some of these players, the team already owning that player's rights generally has enough $ ammunition to defend such a heist. The only way it works is if a team has serious cap trouble and cannot get it fixed in a week. This is what happened to Montreal, and what happened to Edmonton (throwing in a change in GM to further complicate things). 

With this past year, why would anyone send an offer for McTavish since it was obvious it would be matched or he would be grossly overpaid and over compensated for. Why would a GM want to spend time negotiating the deal for Anaheim when he has plenty of issues he has to cover himself? 

Guerin, stared at the league GMs, dared them to come with an offersheet, and told them he was going to match it. My opinion is that he would have accepted a return of 1, 2, 3 in the 2026 draft which was not lottery protected. Nobody wanted to reach to those heights of compensation, and Guerin had that much in reserves to match. 

Now, let's also look at the actual offersheet. It brings conflict between the GMs. Armstrong was about to retire, and he hated Bowman's guts and didn't care. Waddell sought revenge. And this is the kind of thing a long time GM would wait for. Waddell waited 2 years  but remembered. GMs are very competitive, and most are old players. They will enact revenge if they are around long enough. Based upon what we know about Guerin, who doesn't think he would seek revenge?