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And more bad news from the Athletic.
Wild’s top pick Marco Rossi will not play this season: Sources
By Michael Russo Jan 30, 2021 181
There are not a lot of things that could overshadow Saturday night’s blowout defeat to the division rival Colorado Avalanche, a game in which the Wild were already playing without their best player, Kevin Fiala, because of a three-game suspension; a game in which they’d lose forward Marcus Johansson to injury and eventually defenseman Matt Dumba to an injury that could sideline him indefinitely.
But during the second intermission of a 5-1 loss, the Wild confirmed a report from The Athletic on Friday that first-round pick Marco Rossi had returned home to Austria and acknowledged for the first time that what kept him off the ice during training camp and beyond this month is complications due to having COVID-19 in November.
The Wild were vague in their announcement in part because of the federal law restricting the release of medical information. They provided no specifics as to what lasting effects Rossi has been dealing with, but sources told The Athletic on Saturday night that the team’s medical staff is confident the 19-year-old center will make a full recovery. While not getting into details, general manager Bill Guerin also said on a recent The Athletic podcast that the Wild are confident he’ll be OK long term.
However, he will not play this season, sources said.
Rossi will return to Minnesota in six weeks to be re-evaluated by doctors. But until then, he’s supposed to stay off the ice, not work out and pretty much take it easy. The objective is for Rossi to solely worry about his health and focus on getting ready for training camp next fall.
After Rossi signed his entry-level contract in late October, the Wild assigned the young center to the ZSC Lions in the Swiss League to play professionally until Wild training camp would open up. Rossi played one game, then tested positive for the virus and missed all of November. After recovering, Rossi was actually set to return to Zurich’s lineup after Thanksgiving, but then multiple players on Zurich tested positive for the virus and the team was put into quarantine.
Because of the delay to the start of the NHL season, the Wild let Rossi have the honor of captaining his native Austria in the world junior championships. Rossi played in the tournament, then flew to Minnesota, excited for training camp.
Sources say Rossi was “exhausted” throughout the tournament, but he never knew anything was wrong with him until Wild doctors wouldn’t clear him to begin training camp after undergoing a physical.
As part of the NHL COVID-19 protocols, all players that have tested positive for COVID-19 must undergo a cardiac screening and bloodwork. It’s unclear if Zurich or Team Austria followed similar protocols, but regardless, the Wild aren’t disclosing the nature of Rossi’s complications.
With 39 goals and 120 points in 56 games last season for the Ottawa 67’s, Rossi became the first European to lead the OHL in scoring and the first European to lead the three-league CHL in scoring since Alex Radulov (152 points) in 2005-06.
Rossi led the OHL with 81 assists and a plus-69, and was the second European import in OHL history to be named MVP. His 2.14 points per game ranked second in the CHL behind No. 1 overall pick, New York Rangers rookie Alexis Lafreniere (2.15), who played in the Quebec League for Rimouski.
Even though the Wild are confident Rossi’s health situation isn’t career-threatening, there could be real implications for his development with all this lost time.
By September, other than four games played at the World Junior Championships and one game for the ZSC Lions, Rossi will have not played consistent hockey in 18 months since the OHL season ended due to the pandemic last March.
But, hockey is secondary to Rossi’s long-term health.
The news came in the middle of a game in which the Wild painfully learned that their soft schedule to open the season has turned from the lesser lights to the big boys.
The Avalanche are a Stanley Cup contender and the Wild were whipped all game long in every facet.
“Pace-wise, there’s no doubt there’s a difference,” veteran Zach Parise said. “That team is good, they’re the class of the league. They play a good style of hockey, they’re fast. The top line is arguably one of the best in the league, so it was a different type of game that we had played in the first eight.”
The first five minutes, it was evident that the Avs were playing at a pace the Wild didn’t see against the Kings, Ducks and Sharks. The Avs won most puck battles, drew six power plays and limited the Wild’s time and space to a degree they could barely connect consecutive passes.
This was the first of four in a row against the Avs, and they’ll have to quickly lick their wounds and find reinforcements for Sunday night’s rematch.
The Wild entered the game already short-handed because Fiala was suspended for boarding and injuring Los Angeles’ Matt Roy two nights earlier.
What put the Wild in a further tough spot against the Avs was a curious lineup decision by the coaches.
Even knowing that Fiala would be suspended Friday, the Wild assigned reigning AHL MVP Gerry Mayhew to the taxi squad. That left the Wild with no extra forwards on the active roster and was an immediate indication that for the third time this season the Wild would play defenseman Brad Hunt and go with 11 forwards.
The first time, coach Dean Evason played Hunt five minutes, the second time less than four minutes, and both games at wing. This time, Evason’s plan was to only play Hunt on the power-play point.
One problem with that: The Wild didn’t draw their first of two power plays until 26 minutes, 24 seconds into the game. Ice-cold, Hunt’s first shift came on the second unit 27:26 into the game.
Through two periods, he played two shifts totaling 71 seconds and finished with five shifts.
The lineup decision was odd to begin with against a fast Avs team on the front end of back-to-backs. It really set up the Wild for failure when Nico Sturm left the game with an injury in the second period. He would return to start the third, but Johansson sustained an undisclosed injury after being checked by Conor Timmins with four minutes left in the second. He would never return.
So, at one point, the Wild, who opened the game with 11 forwards, were down to nine. Against the high-flying Avs!
When questioned why the Wild would go with 11 forwards Saturday morning, Evason said, “There’s lots of options for us. We debated a lot. We communicate. We talked about several different options to go in there and we chose that one here tonight. We’ll see what happens moving forward.”
Obviously, there are no forwards sitting on the taxi squad who are going fill a talent like Fiala’s skates, but the fact that for the third time this season the Wild chose to dress Hunt, a defenseman, over another forward shows just how shallow the Wild’s depth is up front.
It also would seem to indicate the Wild don’t have much confidence in Mayhew, last year’s AHL leading goal scorer with 39 goals in 49 games. Mayhew scored two goals in 13 games with Minnesota, and in all fairness, he hasn’t done a lot to distinguish himself at the NHL level and theoretically could be one of those many in betweeners that excel in the AHL but can’t function in the NHL.
But, on the other hand, one would think it would be important to attempt to roll four lines against the Avs on the front end of consecutive games and already minus Fiala.
Asked point-blank Saturday morning if the team simply feels Mayhew can’t play at the NHL level, Evason said, “The taxi squad is here because we feel every one of them can play at this level. We would not have kept people here on our taxi squad if we didn’t think they could play in the National Hockey League. It’s just a matter of choosing what option we would like when we need somebody to fill in. We have chosen that option here tonight.”
Besides Mayhew, center Luke Johnson and winger Kyle Rau are also on the taxi squad and one would assume one or two may need to be called upon Sunday night depending on the health of Johansson and how Sturm feels when he wakes up.
Evason wanted Hunt in the lineup to aid the Wild’s now 2-for-36 power play, but he didn’t want to pull Carson Soucy from the lineup in order to play Hunt. Well, Soucy had a tough, tough game and in the second period really helped derail the game by taking two undisciplined cross-checking penalties. The Wild killed them off, but all that did was further tire a shorthanded lineup.
“We had to expend a lot of energy,” Evason said.
Another massive concern coming out of Saturday’s game is the health of Dumba, who two years ago sustained a season-ending pectoral injury and last season struggled in his comeback from the injury.
Dumba opened Saturday’s game with one heck of a snipe for his third goal to tie the score at 1 in the first period.
But in the third period, his left skate connected with the right skate of teammate Jordan Greenway just as the Avalanche scored a goal. Dumba awkwardly fell on his right leg and it didn’t look pretty. He was in instant pain and needed help off the ice and down the tunnel without the ability to put any weight on his leg.
Evason had no updates on Johansson or Dumba after the game, but the Dumba injury especially did not look good.
The Wild will have to quickly put Saturday’s game behind them and figure out a way to neutralize their very talented opponent Sunday.
“They’re a good team clearly. We’ve got to simply compete harder,” Evason said. “We’ve got to find a way to win puck battles. Obviously, they had the puck, but we didn’t feel like we challenged enough when there was the opportunity to win that 50-50 battle. We think if we do more of that we’ll have clearly more possession and have more opportunities to score and they would have less.”
Talbot backs up, could start Sunday
No. 1 goalie Cam Talbot, who missed the previous three games with a lower-body injury after starting the season with a 2-1 record, 2.34 goals-against average and .925 save percentage, backed up Kaapo Kahkonen on Saturday and could start Sunday. He got hurt in the first period against the San Jose Sharks in the opening game of the six-game homestand.
“It was just a fluke injury on the power play there,” Talbot said. “The puck just got tipped into an area with limited padding. Just one of those things that shocked my leg for a minute and couldn’t really get up. Tried to battle it out through the rest of the first period there and kill off that power play and get to the intermission.
“Then when I came back out my leg kind of tightened up a little bit and thought it’d be detrimental to the team if I stayed in. Took myself out and Kaapo has been playing well ever since. I’m just looking forward to getting back in there.
“It was very frustrating. I’d started about as well as I hoped to start behind a new group like this and get to know the guys. Then you take a week off from the guys. You kind of lose what you built over the first few weeks. Just happy to get back out there with the guys.”
Wild to debut North Stars-themed Reverse Retro uniforms Sunday
Sunday night when the Wild host the Avalanche, they will debut their North Stars-colored jerseys with a Wild logo on the front and yellow stars on green breezers.
Parise, 36, who grew up a North Stars fan and whose late father, J.P., played for the North Stars before Zach was born, can’t wait.
“The color scheme’s awesome,” Parise said. “I think for all of us North Star fans here in Minnesota, you feel like it’s been a long time coming that we add a little bit of that into the jerseys and into the team. The breezers are great. They did a really good job with them to pay a little tribute to the North Stars for a lot of us (who) grew up watching them here. I think it’s a great thing.
“Coming to those guys’ games, walking into the Met Center, that was my favorite team growing up. I used to love going and watching them play. We had, from my dad’s playing days, we had a lot of the North Stars memorabilia around the house. A lot of his old gear and pictures. So, for me in particular, to be able to wear those colors, it will be fun.”
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