By Chris Schad -
The Minnesota Wild dropped a bombshell on the NHL on Friday night when they acquired Quinn Hughes in a blockbuster trade with the Vancouver Canucks. One of the best defensemen and arguably a top-10 player in hockey, Hughes will draw all of the headlines when he joins Kirill Kaprizov and Matt Boldy in one of the best cores in franchise history. But one of the many subplots in the deal involves Marco Rossi.
Rossi always felt like a misfit since the Wild selected him with the ninth overall pick in the 2020 draft. After a demotion to the fourth line during last season’s playoff series against the Vegas Golden Knights, many thought he had played his last game in Minnesota until the two sides agreed to a three-year, $15 million contract in August.
In the end, that deal was a temporary truce between the two sides, and Bill Guerin played it perfectly by using Rossi to acquire the superstar player the Wild needed.
The drama began when Rossi was demoted last spring. Rossi was coming off the best year of his career, recording a career-high with 24 goals and 60 points while playing all 82 games. At 24 years old, Rossi believed that he could become a top-six forward for the Wild while Minnesota looked at what they had coming in the pipeline.
Danila Yurov was on his way over from Russia, and the team already had Joel Eriksson Ek and Ryan Hartman locked into long-term contracts. The team added another center to the mix by signing Nico Sturm to improve the bottom six and the penalty kill, and you could see the walls closing in on Rossi as he was due for a new contract.
That led to plenty of rumors heading into the summer. Wild fans thought Rossi could be traded to the Buffalo Sabres for JJ Peterka, but that dream died when Buffalo rejected the offer, and he was traded to the Utah Mammoth instead. According to The Athletic’s Michael Russo, the Wild also turned down a deal that would have sent Rossi to the Canucks in exchange for center Aatu Raty, goalie Arturs Silvos, and the No. 15 overall pick in last June’s draft.
In hindsight, it would have been easy for Bill Guerin to pull the trigger on these trades as Wild owner Craig Leipold billed last July as “Christmas." After Minnesota struck out in free agency, Guerin could have felt more pressure to do something like Howard Langston searching for the last Turbo Man action figure on Christmas Eve, but instead opted to keep Rossi around to buy time.
The move turned out to be a sound decision. While Rossi was a serviceable player for the Wild, he was unlikely to be the answer in the team’s search for a franchise center that has spanned throughout its existence. His play also looked more like the second half of last season than the first, with just four goals, 13 points, and a minus-6 rating before suffering a lower-body injury.
There was nothing wrong if the Wild decided to hold on for a little longer. Still, with him looking more like a second or third-line center, the Wild were wise to keep him on the trading block and pair him with some of their other movable assets when a top-tier player became available, which happened on Friday night.
Hughes brings several aspects that Rossi just couldn’t provide. He’s an elite player who can spark the team’s power play and bring the type of production from the blue line the Wild were hoping to get from Zeev Buium, who was also included in Friday’s trade down the road.
Most importantly, it makes the Wild feel like they have the firepower to go head-to-head with the Colorado Avalanche and Dallas Stars, a formality considering the NHL’s flawed playoff format and something that didn’t feel possible the last few seasons.
It also makes the Wild feel like their time is right now. With Rossi, Buium, and Liam Ohgren, it felt like the future was still a couple of years off in the distance, even with Kaprizov and Buium playing at an elite level.
If Guerin pulled the trigger on a deal this summer, there’s a good chance the Wild looked like they did on Friday morning: A team that could steal a game or two in a playoff series but unlikely to be a threat for the long run. Hughes changes that, and giving up on Rossi feels like collateral damage.
While there is some risk given Hughes's long-term future and the Wild still needing help at the center position, trading Rossi in this deal has a bigger impact than the deals on the table last summer. It brings the Wild one step closer to the team they want to be and shows they made the most of a tough situation with a young player.
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