Behind Marco Rossis road to No. 1 center a bright spot amid Wilds disastrous start

April 13, 2024

ST. PAUL, Minn — Most days, no matter what he’s doing, André Tourigny checks in on Marco Rossi.

Tourigny, the Arizona Coyotes head coach, has a soft spot for Rossi, having coached the Wild’s prized prospect for two years in juniors with the Ottawa 67’s. He’s seen Rossi score 120 points in 56 games during his draft year, when the Austrian center was picked No. 9. So with Rossi scoring four goals in his first 10 games — tying him with generational rookie Connor Bedard — Tourigny isn’t surprised.

“I’m so happy. I’m his biggest fan,” Tourigny said. “I cheer for him every time. Every time I go on my (NHL) app, I look at ‘Minny’ and Marco. How many minutes? His faceoffs. All of it. I love him a lot.”

When Tourigny checked his app Friday, he would have seen that Rossi played 20 minutes for the first time in his NHL career. He would have found out that Rossi, 22, was elevated to the top line with superstar Kirill Kaprizov and Matt Boldy. On Saturday against the New York Rangers, Rossi will have another promotion — to the top power-play unit — one of many lineup tweaks coach Dean Evason has made during a season-opening slide.

“He’s done everything we’ve asked,” Evason said. “He’s earned the right to get the ice time he’s getting.”

This wasn’t the way the Wild drew up giving Rossi his much-anticipated dream opportunity. Rossi was moved up to the top line partly because the team — and its biggest star in Kaprizov — has been struggling and needed a shakeup. This is a tense time in St. Paul, with Minnesota having lost four in a row, six of its last seven. The Wild’s penalty kill is porous. They’ve trailed more than any team in the league. They’re still without captain Jared Spurgeon and Freddy Gaudreau; Spurgeon continues to practice but won’t play Saturday.

But Rossi’s development has been one of their biggest bright spots. If you think about it, if the Wild are ever going to learn if Rossi is a true No. 1 center, if he can handle this, this is the best-case scenario. If Minnesota was rolling out of the gate, Rossi would likely still be on the third line. Now it’ll get to learn something about a player at a position it’s desperately needed help in.

And Rossi’s family gets a front-row seat. His parents, Michael and Claudia, attended their first game of the season in Thursday’s 5-3 loss to the New Jersey Devils. Rossi’s girlfriend, Stefanie, was at Xcel Energy Center, too. They’ll be at Saturday’s game against the Rangers, a couple of the games on the upcoming road trip, the home Dallas game a week from Sunday and then make the two-hour flight from Austria to Sweden for the Global Series in mid-November.

The family missed him all summer as Rossi spent the offseason in Minnesota, determined to work and show he’s ready for the next step. “This is my time,” Rossi would say. He put on 10-15 pounds of muscle in the past year and reworked his skating stride. It paid off.

“To him, this wasn’t a sacrifice,” said Michael Rossi, a former longtime pro hockey player who had a two-decade career overseas. “Maybe some feel it because he didn’t come home, but when you want it, when you want to be in the NHL, you do it. His goal is to be in the NHL and he says, ‘When it helps me do that, I’m happy to stay in Minnesota in the summer.’ So I’m happy for him because it looks like it’s working.”

Rossi’s road to No. 1 center has certainly not been a straight line. He missed a season due to a COVID-19-sparked heart condition called myocarditis. After starting last year on the Wild roster, he was sent back to AHL Iowa after racking up just one point in 19 games. He rebuilt his confidence but made the commitment in the summer to make the necessary improvements physically to be ready. That included missing the wedding of his sister, Marielle.

“Our family is very close,” Michael Rossi said. “It was tough on Marco. He said, ‘Daddy, listen, if you guys say I should come, I come.’ But his sister said to Marco, ‘Marco, work on your dream. It’s all good and don’t worry about coming.’ And we’ll have a party when he’s coming home in May, June. But it was a decision for Marco, and we stand behind him. He wants to be in the NHL. He wants to be a good player for the Minnesota Wild. He knew to do that he needed to stay in Minnesota. We’re proud he did because he’s now being rewarded.”

Rossi has been one of the Wild’s best forwards at five-on-five to start the season. You could see a confidence, a calmness in his game. He’s not getting pushed off the puck as much, and he’s creating time and space for himself. Rossi is getting to the dirty areas, with 16 of his 25 shots this season coming from high-danger and mid-danger areas, per the NHL’s Edge stats. You can see in these charts by Micah Blake McCurdy how the Wild’s offense has improved while Rossi is on the ice.

(Courtesy of Micah Blake McCurdy)

“He’s playing with more confidence, which is huge,” Boldy said. “He’s playing his game — simple, fast, hard. A lot of his goals are coming in the crease, which are the hard ones to get sometimes.

“I don’t think there was ever too much question about (his potential). It’s a hard league. You come in and stuff is not going your way, it’s hard to get out of sometimes. But the confidence he’s playing with now is awesome.”

Rossi, who played with Boldy in the minors, said it’s “easy” to play with him and Kaprizov, noting how skilled and smart they are. But what’ll be important, too, is if Rossi can spark Kaprizov, who has admittedly struggled to be at the top of his game to start the season.

“Kirill Kaprizov is a superstar,” Michael Rossi said. “He’s maybe a little bit down now (with his play). But I think Marco can maybe help Kirill and get him the puck in shooting positions and the same with Boldy. I think they can help Marco, too.”

Evason was as candid in his criticism of his team after Thursday’s game as he’s ever been. And he was just as hot Friday after a long, hard practice. Moving Rossi to the top line wasn’t the only change, with the top power-play unit now five forwards (Marcus Johansson, Boldy, Rossi, Kaprizov, Joel Eriksson Ek). Veteran defenseman Jon Merrill is likely going to be a healthy scratch, with rookie Daemon Hunt getting to play.

“Being nice to them wasn’t working, right? Two days off didn’t work,” Evason said. “(Friday) is work — hopefully, (it) works. … Obviously, none of us are happy. Players aren’t happy. It’s not just the coaching staff, it’s management. Players are pissed off, too. Hopefully, they’ll be pissed off (Saturday) night when the puck is dropped.”

You’d understand if Mats Zuccarello was one of the players who was ticked off. He’s been a fixture on the top line with buddy Kaprizov the last few years, and Friday he found himself on the second line with Ryan Hartman and Johansson. He wasn’t on the top power-play unit, either, moved to the second one. That’s where he’ll be Saturday against his former team, the Rangers. But in a near-empty dressing room at TRIA Rink following practice, Zuccarello was one of the veterans sitting in his stall when the media was let in (along with Pat Maroon and Marc-Andre Fleury, for example). It was like the veteran winger had something to stay.

Zuccarello said he understood the line tweaks — “sometimes it’s good to change things up” — and admitted he’s been struggling a little bit.

“I’d like to create a little bit more and keep the puck out of our net,” he said. “I feel like every mistake you make ends up biting you in the back. I’ve had stretches like that before. It’s about not overthinking, keep playing the game, be confident in what you do. It’s easy when you get in a spell like this to have high shoulders, grip your stick and not want to make mistakes. That’s when you make mistakes.”

Zuccarello said he’d rather have these kinds of struggles as a team earlier in the season than later, as they have time to fix and build off. The fact they’ve trailed so much in games hasn’t helped. But Zuccarello preached patience, positivity and plenty of hard work, which he believes will get them out of this.

“It’s not like these guys don’t f—ing work hard, we work hard every day,” Zuccarello said. “It’s the hardest working team I’ve been on. It’s just sometimes when it goes bad, you work too hard and you try to do too much. Everyone needs to stick to your game and do your job and trust each other. Play as a five-man unit. Stick together. In tough times, it’s easy to point fingers and yell at each other. But we’ve got to stick together. It’s 10 games. If we miss the playoffs, we can be angry. But it’s 10 games. We have 72 games to play. We need to bring some positivity, trust each other, believe in each other and have that swag to make plays. It’s a good league. If you make plays, you’re going to win games. We have to get back to that.”

Rossi has been making plays, bringing that calmness, that “swag.” It didn’t happen overnight, as Rossi credited his time in Iowa last season that allowed him to find his game, bring more of an “F you” mindset that general manager Bill Guerin wanted. When Tim Army, Rossi’s coach in Iowa last season, watches him, he sees a hungry player who’s taking charge more, “not blending.” He’s trying to score every shift.

“He does completely understand that it’s a process,” Army said. “He worked his tail off for two years in Iowa and was a game-changer last year. After we talked in Rockford before Christmas, he started to really take charge and dictate the tempo of the game. He was so much hungrier offensively, he commanded the puck. He just needed to mature physically, and the extra weight and strength work really helped this summer. He’s playing so well. He deserves it and has earned it.”

The kid is on 🔥! #mnwild pic.twitter.com/f490OEiNeH

— Minnesota Wild (@mnwild) November 3, 2023

It’ll be up to Rossi whether he stays up on the top line (it’s been only two periods). And it won’t get any easier with the first-place Rangers on their schedule in two of the next three games, plus games with the Islanders, Sabres and Stars before the Sweden trip. The Wild need much more than just strong play by Rossi up the middle to turn things around, but his performance has been an encouraging light in a dark stretch.

Tourigny feels this is just the start.

“I’m a huge believer,” Tourigny said. “I was expecting him to take a little bit of time. Marco’s mindset is always to grow. He’s got a real good growth mindset. I knew he wouldn’t waste his time in Iowa. He’d go there and work at it. I’m happy to see him have his break.

“He’s going to be a good player here for a long time.”

— The Athletic’s Michael Russo contributed to this report.

(Photo: Dan Hamilton / USA Today)

ncG1vNJzZmismJqutbTLnquim16YvK57lGlpcXFgbnxzfJFsZmppX2WAcLnAq5qoZaKkwLS1jLCgpZxdpb%2Bwuc6toKimXw%3D%3D