Contract Talks Stall Between Wild, Top RFA

Minnesota Wild forward Marco Rossi is coming off the best season of his young career, scoring 24 goals and 60 points in 82 games to finish third and second on the team, respectively.

Despite that, the 23-year-old remains a restricted free agent nearly a month into the offseason, and it may be a while before that changes.

According to Michael Russo and Joe Smith of The Athletic, the Wild and Rossi's camp haven't spoken on a new contract since early June. There's also no sign of an offer sheet from another team, so it appears to be a true stalemate. He also was not eligible to elect salary arbitration this offseason.

Russo and Smith add that Rossi has already declined a pair of contract offers in hopes of securing the money and term he desires.

"Rossi has already turned down a five-year, $25 million deal and a two-year deal at less than $5 million per [year]," Russo and Smith wrote. "On a long-term deal, he wants in the $6 or $7 million range. On a short-term deal, he’s hesitant to sign what he sees as an under-market-value contract, fearing it would make him easily tradeable (since he isn’t yet eligible yet for no-trade protection) or leave him buried in the lineup if the Wild acquire a top-six center or a youngster like Danila Yurov emerges during the life of his contract."

"It feels like the only solution is a short-term deal in the $5 million range — unless Guerin changes his tune and suddenly accepts some of the recent comparables in this growing-cap world, signing him to a longer-term deal north of $6 million. That seems unlikely if the Wild aren’t sold on committing to him long-term."

Rossi's ice time notably dropped from an average of 18:15 in the regular season to 11:08 in the postseason, fueling speculation that the Wild could look to move on from the former No. 9 overall pick.

General manager Bill Guerin previously said that he was "not dying" to trade Rossi, but didn't completely rule it out.