One of the more prominent remaining restricted free agents is Wild center Marco Rossi. He has long been in trade speculation given what’s believed to be a significant gap to bridge between the two sides but with a little more than $10MM in cap space per PuckPedia, they have ample room to sign him or match any potential offer sheet. Without the ability to file for arbitration, Sarah McLellan of the Minneapolis Star-Tribune suggests that Minnesota still holds the hammer in negotiations, especially since they’ve positioned themselves to be able to match an offer sheet, something Edmonton didn’t do last summer when they lost a pair of players to St. Louis. At this point, a trade looks less and less likely so it feels like a situation where the two sides are going to have to hammer out a contract. While the team has presented short-term and long-term offers, a shorter-term pact would seemingly make the most sense for Rossi if his camp feels that Minnesota’s offers are too low for a long-term agreement.
More from out West:
- Sharks RFA winger Daniil Gushchin told Sport24’s Dmitry Yerkalov that he hasn’t decided yet if he’ll re-sign with San Jose or play in Russia next season. The 23-year-old was quite productive in the minors with the Barracuda, tallying 28 goals and 23 assists in 56 games but that performance didn’t give him much of an opportunity with the Sharks as he played in just a dozen games where he had only one assist. Gushchin stated that he is hoping to make a decision about his playing future by the beginning of August.
- Still with the Sharks, new winger Jeff Skinner received some trade protection in his contract according to PuckPedia (Twitter link). The 33-year-old has a full no-trade clause through January 30th at which time, the protection drops to just a six-team no-trade clause for the remainder of the season. Accordingly, while this deal won’t stop Skinner from being a speculative in-season trade candidate, any move is likely to come closer to the trade deadline. Skinner had 16 goals and 13 assists in 72 games with Edmonton last season.
- If Roger McQueen doesn’t make the Ducks’ roster in training camp, he told Global News’ Scott Roblin (Twitter link) that he will return to WHL Brandon instead of pursuing NCAA options. McQueen was the tenth pick last month, sliding in the draft after being limited to just 17 regular season games last season due to back troubles but he was quite productive in those outings, picking up 10 goals and 10 assists. Given that he missed most of the year, it’s not overly surprising that he’d elect to return to junior to get more game action in to try to make up for some lost time.
Beckett Sennecke has a better chance of making the Ducks roster at training camp, Than McQueen.
As do Nesterenko and Colangelo.
True. Perhaps, Poehling, And Johnston are headed out the door, Time will tell.
I think if Rossi was going to be apart of the Wild future, He’d be signed by now, Guerin is simply waiting for the right trade. Rossi all but disappearing in last season’s playoffs dosen’t help the process.