By Tony Abbott -
On some blessed day, we'll have zero Marco Rossi trade whispers to discuss. Unfortunately, today is not that day. With the end of the Minnesota Wild season behind us, we're getting some idea of how the Wild, with limited options to improve their team, intend to shake things up before the start of next year. Unless the Wild want to make a major, risky move involving Kirill Kaprizov, Joel Eriksson Ek, or Matt Boldy, Rossi is the most established NHLer who could move the needle.
Trading Rossi appears to be something Minnesota is very open to doing, if The Athletic's Joe Smith and Michael Russo have the correct read on Bill Guerin's thinking. In a Wednesday mailbag, they wrote the chances of such a deal happening were "higher than you'd think."
Why move a 20-goal scorer at center before he turns 23? "If the Wild could trade Rossi for the same level of high-end prospect, but one who's bigger and faster, there's a real chance they'd pull the trigger," Smith and Russo outlined. This naturally leads to the follow-up question.
How do you do that without losing depth at center?
"It doesn't have to be a center," the beat writers wrote, addressing that concern. "They envision Danila Yurov playing center once he makes it to the NHL.... Also, the Wild plan to give Riley Heidt every chance to make the team in the fall."
Lest we think this is simply the pet theory of The Athletic's brain trust, Guerin didn't leave room for much else when detailing his vision on the radio. "I think our [defense] is pretty set if we're healthy," Guerin said on Judd Zulgad's "Judd's Hockey Show" podcast. "[At] forward, we can stand to get a little bigger." Taking a quick look at forwards under 6-foot-0 and without trade protection on the Wild, the list is Kaprizov, Rossi, Marat Khusnutdinov, and AHL call-up Vinni Lettieri. Uh-oh.
It's difficult to grasp why a front office that watches Rossi nightly would seek to trade him, particularly for being too small. Yes, Rossi is 5-foot-9; the height chart doesn't lie. But there's a difference between being short and being small, and much like the 5-foot-10 Kaprizov, Rossi doesn't play small.
In January, EP Rinkside's Mitch Brown offered a detailed breakdown of Rossi's game. It's easy to look at "20 goals," but Brown was blown away elsewhere. "The key to Rossi's early success hasn't been his skill level but his nuanced checking game," he declared.
What makes up that checking game? Look at the following highlight reel of Brown's praise for Rossi:
Rossi is steadily becoming a master of winning body positioning... Evasive and deceptive with a defender on his back... Often initiates contact and wins inside positioning four or five times [in a shift]... Leverages his physical skills to impact the game without touching the puck... He lifts sticks and rushes the net... He pins opponents, trapping their feet with his own... Rossi punishes players who venture too close with reverse hits." (Emphasis mine.)
Take out "5-foot-9" from the equation just for a moment: Does any of that read like a small player? Or even a player that's too small to handle the rigors of the center position? No, and if a scout can see all of these ways Rossi maximizes his frame and imposes his will against bigger opponents, why can't Guerin, a veteran of 1263 NHL games?
Now let's talk about those goals. For one, there were 21 of them! There aren't many things in Wild history rarer than a 20-goal center. Since the NHL started tracking faceoffs in 2007-08, there are only six Wild centers who've registered more than 300 faceoff wins and scored 20-plus goals.
Joel Eriksson Ek (2021-22, 2022-23, 2023-24)
Eric Staal (2016-17, 2017-18, 2018-19)
Ryan Hartman (2021-22, 2023-24)
Mikko Koivu (2008-09, 2009-10)
Marco Rossi (2023-24)
Kyle Brodziak (2011-12)
Rossi is the youngest center on that list to hit the 20-goal mark. The only center who comes close is Koivu, who scored 20 goals in his age-23 season. Everyone else was 25 or older. Rossi being this good offensively and this fast while handling his business defensively is such a rare thing in Minnesota's history.
Again, we need to look at being short versus playing small. The goals Rossi scores aren't on the perimeter, and he doesn't shy away from the hardest areas of the ice. Like Eriksson Ek, who has six inches and 25 lbs. on his Austrian counterpart, Rossi thrives at the front of the net. The average distance on Rossi's 5-on-5 goals was 14.76 feet, nearly three feet closer to the net than Eriksson Ek (17.52 feet).
Then it must be mentioned how 18 of Rossi's 21 goals were at 5-on-5 play. That matches Boldy and is tied for second (behind Kaprizov) on the Wild. But it's even better than that. Rossi finished the year tied for 39th in the NHL in 5-on-5 goals alongside much more traditional power forwards like Boldy (6-foot-2), Alex Tuch (6-foot-4), Brandon Saad (6-foot-1), Brock Boeser (6-foot-1), and Owen Tippett (6-foot-1).
Among centers, Rossi's looking even better, as you can see from the 5-on-5 goal totals from players with 400-plus faceoffs:
1) Auston Matthews: 38
2) Nathan MacKinnon: 36
3) Brayden Point: 28
4) Sidney Crosby: 23
T-5) Brock Nelson: 22
T-5) Wyatt Johnston: 22
T-7) J.T. Miller: 20
T-7) Tyler Seguin: 20
T-9) Connor McDavid: 19
T-9) Evgeni Malkin: 19
T-9) Jason Dickinson: 19
T-12) Marco Rossi: 18
T-12) Nico Hischier: 18
T-15) Bo Horvat: 17
T-15) Nick Bjugstad: 17
T-15) Nick Suzuki: 17
Despite most seeing him as a playmaker as a prospect, Rossi's scoring isn't a fluke. He ranked 70th in the NHL with 15.1 expected goals, out-generating players like Tim Stützle, Kevin Fiala, Ryan O'Reilly, Suzuki, and more. It's not only sustainable success but something he can use as a stepping stone for a true breakout year.
Guerin and the Wild front office got to watch Rossi through all 82 games. They should know all the subtleties that make up his game and have him playing much bigger than the height and weight chart lists him as. If Minnesota is somehow unable to look past his being 5-foot-9 and trades him because of that, it could be not only a short-sighted move but a critical failure of talent evaluation.
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