DONE DEAL: 23 years old Minnesota Wild Forward Agrees $7.8 Million Contract Extension Keeping Him Until The End Of 20….

DONE DEAL: 23 years old Minnesota Wild Forward Agrees $7.8 Million Contract Extension Keeping Him Until The End Of 20….

What Would A Marco Rossi Long-Term Deal Look Like?

Marco Rossi is a hockey blogger’s dream. Drafted 9th overall, he was undersized but supremely skilled. That combination made him a content factory. Following the draft, Rossi experienced life-threatening complications from COVID-19 and has gritted his way back to a development path typical of a top-ten draft pick.

 

Even during that development, he’s been reluctantly embroiled in quotes about needing more “F-you” in his game. He responded with two herculean offseasons, staying in Minnesota, thousands of miles from his home in Austria, and missing his sister’s wedding in 2023.

He’s answered every question about his 5-foot-9 frame by dominating at the offensive net-front this season, establishing himself as a top-six forward at just 23 years old. He commands the love of fans and the thousands of words that have already been published about his young NHL career.

 

Because so much ink has been spilled figuring out what Marco Rossi is, the typical content has fallen by the wayside. With his contract up for extension this summer, it’s time to dive into another blogging mainstay.

How much money will Rossi demand in his next contract?

 

Marco Rossi is a restricted free agent this summer. That means that if another team offers him a contract, the Wild have the right to match the contract. If Minnesota chooses not to match the offer, the other team must provide draft compensation to the Wild based on the average annual value (AAV). A higher AAV means higher draft compensation.

That dynamic depresses Rossi’s market value because his value to any team besides the Wild is his on-ice value minus the value of the draft compensation. For example, if the Chicago Blackhawks offered Rossi four years at $7 million AAV and the Wild refused to match it, Chicago would give Minnesota their 2027 first- and third-round picks.

So, Chicago would need to consider Rossi to be worth the value of the $7 million salary cap hit, plus the value of those two picks.

 

That leaves us with a basic math problem. What is Rossi’s on-ice value against the salary cap, and what’s the value of those two picks?

The Athletic’s Dom Luszczyszyn has produced a robust analytical model that can help answer the first question. The diminutive Austrian has been extremely effective at five-on-five this season, driving a $7.8 million market value.

That’s a significant jump from last year’s performance — about a 65% improvement. Part of that is a 5.4% increase in the salary cap, which drives up every player’s market value in the model by that amount. However, the rest of it is based on Rossi’s play. That raises a major core question:

 

Is this season an outlier?

It makes sense that a 22-year-old rookie would make significant strides in his age-23 season, but how much is sustainable? Rossi’s goals and assist numbers are in the 81st and 84th percentile, while his xGoals (a measure of scoring chance quality) are only in the 70th percentile.

That could indicate that he’s due for some regression, but it can also suggest that he’s a skilled passer and finisher. That type of player improves the value of scoring chances for himself and his teammates — generally the kind of player you’d like to have in your organization.

 

Perhaps this is one of the sticking points that has made negotiating Rossi’s deal so complicated. From one lens, the Wild might see him as the top-ten draft pick they hoped for: a skilled player with a nose for the net. However, from an analytical lens, there is reason to suspect Rossi has been running hot in this breakout year and is due for some future regression.

 

So, let’s cool that $7.8 million number off. $7 million seems fair — it encapsulates Rossi’s growth from last year but leaves room for regression. But speaking of year-over-year growth, how much should the Wild predict Rossi to improve in the next few seasons?

Again, these numbers aren’t just based on Boldy’s development and aging. They also include old salary cap projections. Separate Boldy’s projection from salary cap changes and adjust for updated cap estimates, and we can tack that onto Rossi’s estimated current value of $7 million.

I also shifted Boldy’s timeline forward by a full year so that the increases corresponded to the number of years after each player’s draft, respectively. One notable issue with this method is that while Boldy was drafted a year earlier than Rossi, he’s only six months older. This projection may be overly optimistic about Rossi’s future development. To stay on the safe side, I’ll lean into the $7 million current value going forward rather than the $7.8 million.

So, that gives us a good estimate of Rossi’s on-ice value against the salary cap. All that’s left to do to project the actual contract price is to consider the value of draft compensation.

 

We can use Brock Faber’s contract to estimate the value of the draft compensation in a Marco Rossi offer sheet. When he signed, Faber gave up an estimated $13.6 million of surplus salary cap value.

Faber’s $8.5 million AAV complicates this math, though. An offer sheet at that AAV would cost another team a first-, second-, and third-round pick, while Rossi seems unlikely to reach the $7.21 million AAV necessary for that threshold. Using past draft pick trade values, we can estimate that a first- and third-round pick is about 82% of the value of Faber’s theoretical offer sheet compensation. 82% of $13.6 million is about $11.15 million. That’s how much Rossi’s RFA years suppress his market value.

 

Finally, 900 words later, we have enough to estimate a four-year contract for Marco Rossi. His on-ice production should be worth about $39.94 million, and his RFA market should be about $11.15 million below that. Averaged across four years, that’s exactly a $7.20 million AAV. Any higher than that, and the draft compensation would force his AAV lower.

That number may also end up higher than Rossi’s four-year deal. Bill Guerin has indicated as much based on Michael Russo’s recent reporting. “If Rossi’s looking for a long-term deal in the $8 million range, that could be the type of contract Guerin has no appetite in signing him to,” he wrote in early February. “Same thing if he’s seeking a Quinton Byfield-like bridge deal (five years at $6.25 million per).”

 

Some of that might be posturing. Ultimately, it’s Guerin’s job to sign Rossi as cheaply as possible, and 31 other GMs are working alongside him in a fight against the rising tide of NHL contracts in light of massive upcoming salary cap projections. Byfield’s deal looked absurdly team-friendly by Luszczyszyn’s model at the time of signing, and that was before reports of the impending cap explosion.