Through the first two full seasons of his NHL career, Vancouver Canucks centre Marco Rossi has shown great durability. In those seasons, Rossi appeared in all 82 games for the Minnesota Wild. In 2025-26, however, Rossi faced three separate lower-body injury setbacks.

First, it was a brief one-game absence in late October with the Minnesota Wild. On November 14, he suffered a lower-body injury that placed him on injured reserve for 13 games. While recovering, he was traded to the Canucks as part of the blockbuster Quinn Hughes deal and made his Canucks debut on December 14th. Just two weeks later, Rossi landed back on injured reserve for an 18-game stint before finally returning to the Canucks’ lineup on February 25, 2026. To that point, he had two points in eight games.

Upon returning, Rossi showed real chemistry down the final stretch of the season playing alongside Brock Boeser and Liam Öhgren on the BRÖ line (shoutout to CanucksArmy’s Lachlan Irvine for coming up with that name, which Rossi himself seemingly approved of during his appearance on CBC’s “After Hours”). As a line, that trio put up results that make them one of the few things that feel like a safe bet to make when projecting the 2026-27 Canucks. It would come as a bit of a surprise to not see that line get a decent run with each other early on next season. Through his final 22 games with the foot injury in the rearview mirror, Rossi tallied seven goals and 13 assists, good for 20 points.

In total, the 33 games Rossi played with the Canucks following the trade from the Wild puts him on pace for 55 points over a full 82-game season. That’s promising, given that Rossi’s best season — when he tallied 60 points through 82 games in 2024-25 — came while playing a good chunk of his minutes with Wild superstar Kirill Kaprizov. And when Kaprizov went down, another great player in Matt Boldy stepped up instead. Any discussion about Rossi’s ability to drive a line in Vancouver quieted down through the final stretch of the season. It might be something to keep an eye on moving forward, but the point totals through Rossi’s final 33 games are certainly promising. And those 20 points in 25 games down the final stretch of the season — a 66 point pace — while playing mainly with Boeser and Öhgren are even more promising. Of course, doing it all on a broken foot only makes it more impressive.

In a story with Austrian news website sport.orf.at published in late April, Rossi shared his frustrations with being unable to represent Austria at the Men’s World Championship in Zurich. The story also revealed that Rossi suffered a metatarsal fracture in October and “another injury to the same area in the second half of the NHL season.” According to the story, Rossi required more rest before his summer training could properly begin.

We don’t know the full scope of Rossi’s injury or how much it limited his playing ability, but we do know that Rossi, who got married earlier this summer, was “fully healthy and working hard on and off the ice” when we checked in on his status in late June.

So what could the 2026-27 season look like for a fully healthy Rossi? Here are our goals and expectations for Rossi this upcoming season.

Based on Rossi’s NHL career to this point, it feels like it’s fair to say the Canucks should expect 50-60 points from him this season. He was relied upon to play as the Canucks’ 1C at points down the stretch, and given the uncertainty about what the Canucks can expect from Elias Pettersson at this juncture, being a consistent two-way presence in the Canucks’ top six is a reasonable expectation for Rossi. Whether that be as a 1C or as a 2C behind Pettersson remains to be seen. Regardless, it feels like a reasonable ask to expect somewhere around 50-60 points for Rossi, with at least 20 of those being goals.

It could be a bit of a cause for concern if the chemistry we saw from Rossi with Öhgren and Boeser was a flash in the pan, but that wouldn’t necessarily mean that Rossi’s season is an automatic failure. Boeser is a historically streaky player, and when he’s not going, sometimes he’s really not going. If that ends with Rossi getting some new linemates, it could lead to a feeling-out process, but realistically, Rossi should still be able to put up the points almost regardless of who he’s playing with in the top six. The one thing that should remain constant is that Rossi serves as the Canucks’ first or second line centre basically all season long. Less than that with this roster would suggest that Rossi is underperforming to some extent. 40 points is the point total Rossi put up in his rookie season. It’s the lowest of his short career to this point. Even in that season, he managed to reach 21 goals. Less than those totals could quite fairly be classified as Rossi coming in well below expectations, even on a rebuilding team.

Make no mistake about it. Rossi, who turns 25 in September, absolutely has high-end 2C, low-end 1C potential. Anything above 60 points for Rossi would be a career-high, and scoring in the 70-80+ range puts him firmly in the category of low-end 1C. That would almost be found money for the Canucks, and a season like that would lead to some very interesting conversations about what the rebuilding Canucks should do with Rossi, who has just one season remaining after 2026-27 at his current $5 million cap hit. After that, Rossi will be an arbitration-eligible RFA in the summer of 2028, heading into his age-27 season. Presumably, the Canucks will still be rebuilding at that point, and could have some interesting younger centres on the way with Caleb Mahotra and Braeden Cootes being their current number 1 and 2 prospects, respectively. That could certainly lead to some interesting conversations about Rossi’s future.

But first, let’s just get through 2026-27 and see what Rossi can do through his first full season as a Canuck.