Wild ‘Happy To Keep’ Marco Rossi If Trade Doesn’t Happen – Wilderness Walk

The Minnesota Wild are trying their best to facilitate a trade to send pending restricted free agent center Marco Rossi out of town. But, they need to make it happen under a certain number of guidelines.

According to Daily Faceoff’s Anthony Di Marco, the Wild are continuing to have trade discussions surrounding Rossi but are adamant that it should be a hockey trade, to keep Minnesota competitive and get a roster player of equivalent talent back. And if they don’t find that perfect deal, they are reportedly happy to keep Rossi.

But, of course, the elephant in the room about this whole “keeping Rossi” thing, is that they would need to re-sign the player and that’s partly why we are here in the first place. Rossi is apparently demanding too high of a contract for the Wild to handle. Would anything really change if a trade didn’t come together and we’re suddenly days away from training camp with Rossi still not signed? Maybe.

Rossi is not yet eligible for arbitration, so the team or player cannot decide to get a one- or two-year deal done with a judge moderating in between them. The Wild and Rossi’s camp would need to actually agree to a deal. Maybe it could just be a one-year contract at something like $4 million, just so that Rossi can get something resembling of a deserved pay increase but also clearly a bargain due to the circumstances. This is pure guesswork, but Rossi does seem like a player that doesn’t want to miss playing games because of a contract negotiation.

We will have to see how this continues to play out, but the new added wrinkle that the Wild could just end up keeping Rossi — most likely thanks to the free agent pool drying up — is a little lacking in the drama department.

• The Wild shouldn’t just throw away Frederick Gaudreau this offseason. [Hockey Wilderness]
• Could the Wild acquiring Tomas Hertl from the Vegas Golden Knights, solve the Flyers’ center problem? [Hockey Wilderness]

Off the trail…

• “Everything’s on the table”: A look into Connor McDavid’s future. [ESPN]
• Before we shut everything down, there is a reported trade that will send JJ Peterka to the Utah Mammoth from the Buffalo Sabres. That seems crazy. [Seravalli]

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