Do the Minnesota Wild Value Marco Rossi?
Michael Russo of The Athletic joined Jason Gregor on the DFO Rundown Podcast on Monday. Russo was asked about Marco Rossi and if he was a Bill Guerin-type player.
NHLRumors.com Transcriptions
Jason Gregor: “Rossi is a young player, and you mentioned he got demoted in the playoffs, but we’ve seen lots of guys kind of struggle the first few times in the playoffs. And some guys go back to (Pavel) Datsyuk (Henrik) Zetterberg took four or five turns before they became dominant in the postseason, but he’s a 60-point player in the NHL. Where do you see Rossi? Because at times he doesn’t seem like a Bill Guerin player.”
Michael Russo: “Yeah, that’s, that’s what it comes down to. Look, he had two goals in his first playoffs, and that was playing on the fourth line with Yakov Trenin and Justin Brazeau. So, he did pretty well in my eyes. But I think they went into the playoffs really concerned if he was going to be able to function in a hard game, in a league where you see what the way the Florida and Edmonton played in the Stanley Cup Final.
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A harder brand of hockey you have to play at the two hole. For Florida you have Sam Bennett. And I think a lot of copycat teams look at that, and they just don’t see that with Rossi. So I agree with you. I think that’s the big concern from Marco’s standpoint, because he can’t get no trade protection in this deal, because he’s not a UFA until 2029. So I think he’s worried that if he signs a bridge deal at market value, that he thinks what’s going to happen is that he’s just going to get traded to a place that he doesn’t want to go, or potentially a place that he doesn’t want to go.
So we’ll see where it goes. I’m just really kind of fascinated by this whole thing, because I think Marco has done everything he possibly could over the last couple of years to prove himself to this team. Last year, when they were inundated by injuries and guys like Eriksson-Ek and Kaprizov were out, he was really driving the bus for a lot of the wintertime, and scored a couple of six-on-five goals.
And if you remember, they made the playoffs by the skin of their teeth with a miracle goal by Eriksson-Ek in the final seconds of the season finale. If Eriksson-Ek doesn’t score that goal, they don’t go to the playoffs. So, Rossi was a huge part of this team making the playoffs, and we’ll see where it goes now.”
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