{"id":473502,"date":"2025-08-22T09:07:55","date_gmt":"2025-08-22T13:07:55","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/?p=473502"},"modified":"2025-08-22T09:09:30","modified_gmt":"2025-08-22T13:09:30","slug":"nhl-rumours-its-crunch-time-minnesota-wild-rfa","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/2025\/08\/22\/nhl-rumours-its-crunch-time-minnesota-wild-rfa\/","title":{"rendered":"NHL Rumours and It&#8217;s Crunch Time for Minnesota Wild RFA"},"content":{"rendered":"<p style=\"color: #000000; font-family: sans-serif; font-size: 12.8px;\">Today on the latest edition of NHL Rumours, we travel back to the\u00a0<i>Land of 10,000 Lakes<\/i>. This has been a location we have been touching base with periodically throughout the summer. Between <a href=\"https:\/\/www.hockey-reference.com\/players\/k\/kapriki01.html?utm_medium=linker&amp;utm_source=lastwordonsports.com&amp;utm_campaign=2025-08-22_hr\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Kirill Kaprizov<\/a> and the subject of this edition, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.hockey-reference.com\/players\/r\/rossima01.html?utm_medium=linker&amp;utm_source=lastwordonsports.com&amp;utm_campaign=2025-08-22_hr\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Marco Rossi<\/a>, the <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/2025\/08\/15\/nhl-rumours-more-on-minnesota-wild-rfa-forward\/\" target=\"_self\">Minnesota Wild<\/a> have been stirring rumours. Today, it seems we have a more final type of rumour, regarding the situation between Rossi and general manager <a href=\"https:\/\/www.hockey-reference.com\/players\/g\/gueribi01.html?utm_medium=linker&amp;utm_source=lastwordonsports.com&amp;utm_campaign=2025-08-22_hr\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Bill Guerin<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p style=\"color: #000000; font-family: sans-serif; font-size: 12.8px;\">\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" data-width=\"550\" data-dnt=\"true\">\n<p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">Hearing there has been significant progress toward a potential Marco Rossi signing by the <a  href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/hashtag\/mnwild?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">#mnwild<\/a> in the coming days. As we&#39;ve been reporting, a bridge deal makes the most sense.<\/p>\n<p>&mdash; Michael Russo (@RussoHockey) <a  href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/RussoHockey\/status\/1958534597748142523?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">August 21, 2025<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n<h3 style=\"color: #000000; font-family: sans-serif; font-size: 12.8px;\">NHL Rumours on Marco Rossi Contract Status With the Minnesota Wild<\/h3>\n<p style=\"color: #000000; font-family: sans-serif; font-size: 12.8px;\"><strong>Rumour: As per Minnesota Wild inside Michael Russo a new Rossi contract might be imminent.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><em>Analysis: It is getting crunch time and it doesn\u2019t make sense for Rossi to get to the point of sitting out.<\/em><\/p>\n<p>One perspective to take, is that Rossi isn\u2019t of the elite level that sitting out would tangibly drive up his value. Now, that is not to say the potential for the Austrian native isn\u2019t there for Rossi. He was originally a ninth-overall pick in 2020. His athleticism and hockey skill have always been very highly regarded. There had previously been some questions on his health. However, it really seems like he has strengthened up, and left those thoughts far in the rearview mirror.<\/p>\n<p>The past two seasons, he played a full 82-game slate. In fact, the two years previous to that, he did play fairly full seasons, given he had played 63 and 53 games, respectively, with the AHL\u2019s Iowa Wild. Now, over the two most recent seasons, it really seems like he has established himself an NHL scorer. He had seasons of 21 and 24 goals, and 19 and 36 assists. So, that begs the question, is the expectation he can continue to increase his productivity at the NHL level. Will he be a top contributor on the Wild power play?<\/p>\n<h3 style=\"color: #000000; font-family: sans-serif; font-size: 12.8px;\">How to Make the Dollars Make Sense<\/h3>\n<p style=\"color: #000000; font-family: sans-serif; font-size: 12.8px;\">As per our NHL Rumours, from the team\u2019s perspective, they do have some salary cap considerations, more so down the road. They are also trying to re-sign their proven superstar Kirill Kaprizov. Otherwise, it does seem they have space. Right now, <a  href=\"https:\/\/puckpedia.com\/team\/minnesota-wild\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Puckpedia<\/a> lists them with around $9.4 million in cap space. Their future does look okay, with names like <a href=\"https:\/\/www.hockey-reference.com\/players\/b\/boldyma01.html?utm_medium=linker&amp;utm_source=lastwordonsports.com&amp;utm_campaign=2025-08-22_hr\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Matt Boldy<\/a>, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.hockey-reference.com\/players\/f\/faberbr01.html?utm_medium=linker&amp;utm_source=lastwordonsports.com&amp;utm_campaign=2025-08-22_hr\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Brock Faber<\/a>, having already been signed to long-term deals. But the idea is, saving some money in the short term, would really allow them to boost their roster. The Wild feel like they\u2019re close, but might want funds available to add another player that can help them get over the hump.<\/p>\n<p>Therefore, based on what we are hearing, and that makes the most sense for Rossi, is a bridge deal. This gives the club some flexibility on what they can do for this year and next, including re-signing Kaprizov. Also, it would be good for Rossi individually. If he is able to establish himself, as say, a proven point-per-game player, or better, at the NHL level, it would be worth it in the long run. So, stay tuned, as it seems a Rossi extension, and of the bridge variety, is imminent.<\/p>\n<p>Main Photo Bruce Fedyck Imagn Images<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Today on the latest edition of NHL Rumours, we travel back to the\u00a0Land of 10,000 Lakes. This has been a location we have been touching base with periodically throughout the summer. Between Kirill Kaprizov and the subject of this edition, Marco Rossi, the Minnesota Wild have been stirring rumours. Today, it seems we have a [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4222,"featured_media":473507,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"no","_lmt_disable":"","sfio_featured_image":false,"sfio_embed_code":"","_ef_editorial_meta_date_first-draft-date":"","_ef_editorial_meta_paragraph_assignment":"","_ef_editorial_meta_checkbox_needs-photo":"","_ef_editorial_meta_number_word-count":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[30,4547,34,4548,4321],"tags":[4240,5931],"class_list":["post-473502","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-wild","category-hockey","category-news","category-nhl","category-rumours","tag-marco-rossi","tag-minnesota-wild-rumours"],"modified_by":"Levi Pike, Editor","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/473502","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4222"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=473502"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/473502\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":473509,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/473502\/revisions\/473509"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/473507"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=473502"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=473502"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=473502"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}