Scratch Marco Rossi off the list of possible top-six forward additions for the Vancouver Canucks heading into this season.
Rossi, 23, has been a name that’s come up frequently this summer as a trade target for the Canucks, who have openly talked about adding a centre to play on their top two lines. A Minnesota Wild restricted free agent, Rossi signed a three-year deal with the Wild on Friday, with a $5 million cap hit per season.
Rossi put up 24 goals and 60 points in the regular season, making him Minnesota’s second leading scorer. He played 18 minutes, 15 seconds a night. In the playoffs, he fell out of favour with coach John Hynes, and Rossi’s ice time dipped to 11:08 a night in the six-game first-round loss to the Vegas Golden Knights. He had two goals and one assist.
All that led to the trade speculation. The new deal obviously doesn’t preclude a swap — there’s now cost certainty on Rossi for three seasons — but it certainly does seem that the Wild and Rossi are keen on making things work.
“I tried to control what I could control,” Rossi told the Minnesota media. “In the back of your head is the contract … you hear the talks from your agent and everything.
“But I feel good now and can’t wait to go back to Minny and see the boys.”
The Athletic’s Michael Russo and Joe Smith report that Minnesota general manager Bill Guerin wanted a centre or a winger back who could bring similar production to Rossi’s in any possible trade this summer. In Vancouver’s case, that would have meant trading Brock Boeser — along with other pieces — for Rossi, and the Canucks’ goal is instead to find someone to play alongside Boeser.
It’s looking more and more like the Canucks will go into training camp with a top-six group featuring Boeser, Conor Garland, Jake DeBrusk, Evander Kane, Elias Pettersson and Filip Chytil. Chytil’s concussion history is among the question marks with that group.
Anaheim Ducks centre Mason McTavish, 22, is a restricted free agent who has yet to sign with the club but various teams are said to be interested in adding him if Anaheim opts to put him on the market. Anaheim re-signing him is still very much at play, of course. McTavish had 22 goals and 56 points last season, playing 16:53 a night.
The top remaining unrestricted free agent forward is Jack Roslovic, 28. He had 22 goals and 39 points last season with the Carolina Hurricanes. Vancouver has been among the teams tied to him, although that talk has died down in recent weeks.
Canucks president Jim Rutherford said in the season-ending press availability in April that bolstering the centre spot needed to be in the work in the summer and admitted general manager Patrik Allvin brokering a trade was the best avenue to do that.
“Getting that centre ice strengthened, then you can do a lot of different things with your wingers. So that that will be Patrik’s priority, and if we can do that, it’s going to make it easier to make our forwards better,” Rutherford said then.
According to PuckPedia, the Canucks have $3.27 million of cap space for next season.
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SEwen@postmedia.com