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By Justin Hein -
If you google “What happened on April 25, 2025?” the search engine paints a negative picture. An escalation of Indian-Pakistani tensions in Kashmir, a measles outbreak in the US, and the mourning of Pope Francis, who died just four days earlier.
All of these pale in comparison to the misfortune which befell Marco Rossi on that date.
April 25 is the date of The Athletic’s report of the Minnesota Wild’s contract offer to Marco Rossi: five years, with a $5 million AAV. By my own estimates, that’s over $2 million per year below a fair market value. Even after accounting for Rossi’s RFA status, it’s 30% lower than my projection.
Rossi and his agent’s response has been what most people expected: They shopped for alternative offers. Surprisingly, nothing stuck. A player who had been low-balled by about $2 million per year was unable to find an offer on the open market to exceed that value. At least, not one worth signing.
On his most recent Worst Seats in the House podcast, Michael Russo reported that Rossi’s agent is essentially done shopping for an offer sheet.
Rossi’s leverage is essentially gone. Barring a last-minute surprise offer sheet, Bill Guerin has won.
But how is that possible? It’s one thing for the Wild to undervalue Rossi’s contract, or even just low-ball him as a negotiating tactic. There are 18 teams with the requisite draft pick compensation to offer sheet Marco Rossi. How is it possible that all of those teams came to the same conclusion on Rossi’s deflated market value?
It’s simple: On April 25, 2025, The Athletic published the words, “According to multiple league sources, the Wild offered Rossi a five-year, $25 million contract earlier this winter.”
Reading between those lines, the only “league sources” that could leak this to the media are members of the Wild organization who were part of those negotiations.
To be clear, this isn’t some conspiracy between the Wild organization and members of the media to depress Rossi’s market value. When reporters like Russo get the chance to report that information to the public, it’s their job to publish that report. Instead, this is a master stroke on Guerin’s part. By leaking this information, he’s essentially negotiating through the media.
After that April 25 report, why would any of those 18 teams meaningfully exceed Wild’s 5 x $5 million offer?
There are two conclusions that those teams could make:
- We can get Marco Rossi on a much cheaper offer sheet than we initially thought.
- For some reason, Minnesota views Rossi as damaged goods, and we should stay away.
Both conclusions depress Rossi’s market value.
At this point, Rossi’s only leverage over the team would be a holdout. It’s true that that would put the Wild in a bind, given that 2025-26 is Year 3 of the Wild’s “five-year plan.” On the other hand, holding out past December 1 would make Rossi ineligible to play in the 2025-26 season. That would cost him a great deal in the immediate term and could also damage his long-term value.
Missing a year of NHL hockey isn’t widely viewed as a sound development strategy.
Would Guerin risk a slow start to the regular season? The Wild play 26 games before December 1. Perhaps in years past, that would have been out of the question. However, with Joel Eriksson Ek, Ryan Hartman, Danila Yurov, and Nico Sturm already on the roster, Minnesota could probably get away with its center corps sans Rossi for a third of the season.
Rossi’s team is quickly running out of leverage and running out of time before he starts missing game checks.
Meanwhile, the Wild still have multiple levers to pull. The Rossi contract appears to be a step forward for Guerin as a negotiator, who has historically agreed to inefficient contracts for veterans. However, he has used long-term deals for young players like Matt Boldy, Joel Eriksson Ek, and Kirill Kaprizov as a method of reducing annual costs. Those long-term deals for young players inflate the cost of the deal in early years and increase the risk to the team.
That strategy won’t remain efficient with the Wild entering a competitive window.
A short-term deal for Rossi maximizes the team’s leverage during his RFA years while maximizing the team’s flexibility to trade Rossi. They may decide to pivot to a player with another style on the ice, or Yurov may make Rossi expendable. That would allow the team to address holes in the top-six forward group or on the bottom defense pair if youngsters Liam Ohgren, Zeev Buium, or David Jiricek don’t cut it in those roles for a championship run.
In the meantime, Rossi acts as insurance if Yurov can’t handle a top-six center role.
On the other hand, tense negotiations such as this Rossi extension can have a shelf life. If Rossi becomes dissatisfied with his role and doesn’t put any stock into his relationship with the team, he could force his way out. That would reduce his trade value, which defeats the purpose of that roster flexibility brought by a shorter contract.
If Guerin makes a habit of taking contract extensions for Yurov, Buium, or other prospects all the way to the brink, each of those contracts becomes another stress point for that roster flexibility in the same way that Rossi could. Eventually, any one of those players could demand a trade.
For now, though, the Wild and their fans appear to be winners in this deal, at the cost of Rossi’s bank account. Even if this blows up in Guerin’s face in a calendar year, it pays dividends at the 2026 trade deadline. For every dollar the Wild save on this deal, they get back about $4.5 million in deadline-day cap space. The difference between Rossi at $5 million versus $6 million per year can drastically affect the type of player Minnesota adds in March.
Call it heavy-handed, short-sighted, or a negotiating masterclass. With the dust all but settled, Guerin has won.
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