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Wild’s Bill Guerin breaks silence on Marco Rossi contract demands
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- Wild’s Bill Guerin breaks silence on Marco Rossi contract demands
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The post Wild's Bill Guerin breaks silence on Marco Rossi contract demands appeared first on ClutchPoints .
One of the key decisions that will be made by Minnesota Wild general manager this offseason is whether to continue trying to re-sign pending restricted free agent forward Marco Rossi .
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Multiple reports indicated that Rossi recently rejected a pair of contract offers from the Wild , including a reported five-year, $25 million deal during the regular season. Rossi's name has even been involved in recent trade rumors.
Guerin stated recently that the Wild prefer to keep Rossi around and view him as an asset but that they're going to have to continue attempting to bridge the financial differences , via The Athletic.
"I think sometimes you just have disagreements on where a player is at, and that's fine," Guerin said. "And sometimes it takes a little while longer to work through things. But out there, there's this belief that we don't like him or we're going to trade him.
"And look, he's no different than any other player. If we can make our team better by trading someone, we're going to do it. But that doesn't mean we don't like the player. And Marco is a player that we like. He had a good season again. So I don't know where all this is coming from. … Marco's a good player."
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Guerin also touched on the offer that was rejected by Rossi's camp, who believe he's worth more than what the Wild were apparently willing to pay.
"They don't like it," Guerin said. "And that's fine. This is not a knock on them. They feel he's of more value. But to say I don't like him, if you knew what the value of what those contract offers were, you'd say, 'Oh, he definitely likes him and wants to keep him.'"
The NHL free agency period officially opens on July 1.
Marco Rossi 's ice time during the postseason was down
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Rossi was selected with the ninth overall pick in the 2020 NHL Draft by Minnesota, and despite scoring a new career-high 24 goals, his ice time dipped significantly in the postseason during their loss to the Vegas Golden Knights , averaging just 11:08 per game after an average of 18:14 during the regular season.
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But it wasn't a sign that he was soon to be on the move.
"Yeah, teams see this stuff written and they call, but like I said, Marco's a good player and I'm not interested in making our team worse or postponing our team being better," Guerin said. "So I'm not dying to get rid of Marco. That's the bottom line."
Rossi has scored 45 goals with 56 assists in 185 career NHL games, all with Minnesota.
