Wild’s Rossi Gets Masterton Nomination for Hard Work & Dedication – The Hockey Writers –

Over the years, the Minnesota Wild have been well represented when it came to the Bill Masterton Memorial Trophy, which is awarded to the player that shows a higher level of dedication and perseverance to the game of hockey. The trophy is actually named after a former Minnesota player, but not for the Wild. This story goes back to the days of the North Stars who the Wild based their Reverse Retro jerseys after these past couple of seasons. Masterton unfortunately passed away after receiving an injury in a game in 1968. 

Obviously, over the past few seasons, before he was traded, that player for the Wild was Matt Dumba. Although he didn’t win, another Wild player by the name of Josh Harding did, and a couple of seasons later, so did Devan Dubnyk, both goaltenders who overcame some difficult things to continue to play the game. This award is one of the hardest to choose because there are so many worthy candidates. Last season, it went to Kris Letang, who’s overcome two strokes in his career and continues to play to this day. 

Every team in the NHL can nominate one player, and this season for the Wild, that player is rookie Marco Rossi. This award always has some great nominees, and this season is no different; alongside Rossi, Sidney Crosby, T.J. Oshie, and Alex Pietrangelo are just a few of the many deserving players who’ve been nominated. Some may question why a rookie like Rossi is being nominated for this award, and in this article, we’ll look at why, starting with how difficult it was for him to get to the NHL. 

Rossi Gets Sidelined

Rossi was selected ninth overall in the first round of the 2020 Draft by the Wild, and while he wasn’t going to come to North America just yet, his career was sidelined shortly after that. While playing with the Zurich ZSC Lions during the 2020-21 season, he caught COVID in November 2020, so he was out for a little while. Once he thought he had recovered, he returned to playing in January 2021. He skated in the World Junior Championship Under-20 division in January, but shortly after that, according to The Athletic’s Michael Russo, he found out he had myocarditis from his bout with COVID at the Wild’s training camp later that month, and he’d be out indefinitely to allow his body to rest (from ‘Wild’s Marco Rossi opens up about heart condition that forced him off the ice’, The Athletic, 04/27/2021).

Moreover, he was also going to try to make…