The Wild drafted diminutive Austrian Marco Rossi, who plays for the Ottawa 67’s of the Ontario Hockey League, with the ninth overall pick in the NHL Draft on Tuesday night.
The 19-year-old center went a pick after his junior teammate, Jack Quinn, was taken by Buffalo.
Rossi is the first European to win the OHL scoring title. He was also voted the league’s most outstanding player and was a first-team All-Star.
The Wild addressed a position of need by adding Rossi. Ranked sixth among North American skaters by NHL Central Scouting, Rossi had 39 goals and 81 assists for 120 points in 56 games last season.
The 5-foot-9, 183-pounder is a smooth skater who can score and create offense for others.
“It’s a perfect fit,” he said of the Wild. “They need a center. I’m a center. I’m 100 percent ready. My impact is going to be my whole game. I compete really hard, 200-foot game, play really good defense and offense and a really good playmaker that can also score goals.”
Rossi spoke to media members via Zoom a half-hour after he was picked from his home in Austria, where it was 2:47 a.m.
He hopes to follow in the footsteps of Thomas Vanek, a former Gopher and Wild player who is the top-scoring Austrian in NHL history.
“Thomas Vanek is the best Austrian player to ever play hockey,” Rossi said. “He was a big role model for me when I was a young kid. I wanted to be a hockey player and I wanted to play in the NHL, and he was a very big inspiration in that.”
Rossi had a feeling the Wild might draft him.
“I had some good interviews with them,” he said.
The first pick in the draft, by the New York Rangers, was winger Alexis Lafreniere, a standout for the Canadian junior national team who played for Rimouski Oceanic of the Quebec Major Junior Hockey League.
The Rangers won a lottery to gain the first pick, leaving the Los Angeles Kings to get a runner-up prize in 6-4 center Quinton Byfield of the Ontario Hockey League’s Sudbury Wolves.
Tim Stuetzle, a standout in the top German hockey league, went third to the Ottawa Senators. The Senators also had the fifth pick and took North Dakota freshman defenseman Jake Sanderson.
The fourth choice was Swedish winger Lucas Raymond, who was plucked by Detroit. Alexander Holtz, another winger from Sweden, went to New Jersey at No. 7 after Anaheim took Erie Otters (OHL) defenseman Jamie Drysdale.
Rossi could return to his junior team this season, or break in with the Wild, which lost three centers. It traded Eric Staal to Buffalo and Ryan Donato to San Jose, and saw captain Mikko Koivu’s contract expire.
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October 07, 2020 at 07:26AM
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Wild takes Austrian center Marco Rossi with ninth pick in NHL draft - Minneapolis Star Tribune
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