Marco Rossi wound up being a pretty fine fit on the 2025-26 Vancouver Canucks. Despite dealing with at least two different foot injuries, one of which involved a fracture, Rossi ended the season with 22 points in 33 games as a Canuck, found a spot on the power play, and developed some real chemistry with Brock Boeser and Liam Öhgren.

He could be described as both a rare bright spot in this past season, especially down the stretch, and someone who has set himself up for more success in 2026-27.

But figuring out Rossi’s fit on these rebuilding Canucks in the long term is a lot more difficult. In fact, he might be the biggest mystery box on the depth chart at this present moment. He’ll be 25 by the time next season starts, which is not old, but also not quite young by the standards of a rebuilding hockey franchise.

Everything about Rossi, including his age, his size, and his overall history of production, puts him right in the middle of a lot of discussions. To help sort it all out, we thought it might be useful to go over all the myriad possible roles that Rossi could theoretically play for the Canucks in the long term and how likely those outcomes might be.

But before we get into that, we’ll begin by noting the major advantage that the Canucks have when it comes to making any decisions on Rossi’s future: time. Rossi is already under contract at a $5 million AAV for the next two seasons, and that’s plenty of opportunity to try him out in a few different possible future roles and see what sticks.

We’ll start this section by saying that, as unlikely as it may be, Rossi developing into a first-line centre-type is still on the table at this stage in his career. For someone to really break out in that way after their 25^th birthday is not unheard of, and especially not in Vancouver circles.

JT Miller, for example, did not have his first point-per-game season until he was traded to the Canucks at the age of 26. And he didn’t well-and-truly break out until he hit 99 points a couple of years later at age 28.

To wit, Miller’s 24-year-old season, back in 2017-18 and split between New York and Tampa Bay, saw him produce at a 0.71 PPG rate. This past year, at 24, Rossi split his time between Minnesota and Vancouver and produced at a 0.70 PPG rate. And between the two, it was Rossi who was drafted higher (ninth overall versus 15^th).

But all that being said, Miller’s development path is obviously not a typical one, and it’s safe to say that the odds are stacked against the same sort of thing happening for anyone else. Here, it’s tough not to think of Rossi’s 5’9” frame as a factor. There are very few top-six centres under 5’11” in the league, period, and none of them have been particularly late bloomers.

So, for Rossi to become the 1C of the Canucks’ future would require him to beat a few different sets of odds, and that’s enough to say that, at the very least, it’s not something the Canucks should count on. That means that, as we’ve mentioned before, their next 1C is probably going to have to come from a different source, and that source is almost certainly the draft. But if Rossi is not going to be that 1C, maybe he can be…

By some standards, Rossi is already operating at a fine 2C level. His 0.70 PPG rate was the 57^th-highest among NHL players listed as centres in 2025-26, and some of those players are wingers, anyway. It’s what we might call statistically low-end 2C production, and given that Rossi accomplished that with injuries holding him back and minimal offensive support, it’s reasonable to think he can get that up to at least average 2C production in time, and perhaps as soon as next year.

On this topic, however, we have to mention the rest of the depth chart. Because while the Canucks do not have anyone else on hand shaping up to be a 1C, they’ve definitely got a few assets in that 2C lane.

The first is Elias Pettersson, who seems to have settled into that .70ish PPG range himself of late. We’ve written recently about how, under the right circumstances, Pettersson could be a great transitional centre as the team seeks out its future 1C, holding down the fort at that spot for now and then sliding back to 2C over time.

As it stands, Pettersson is still probably the better centre between him and Rossi, but it’s close, and Rossi is clearly the one with the more upward trend. It’s not that hard to imagine Rossi looking like a better fit than Pettersson in the 2C role sooner rather than later, especially given that Rossi’s cap hit will be less than half of Pettersson’s for the next two years.

That cap hit means that, if Pettersson is not traded, the team is almost obligated to continue to try to get him going as a top-six centre, and that will hurt Rossi’s opportunities there. For that reason, if EP40 stays around, it’s safe to assume that Rossi’s future lies elsewhere.

It might anyway, because of the existence of Braeden Cootes. He’s the Canucks’ top current forward prospect, and while most will say he does not quite have 1C potential, he’s had a very good Draft+1 year that has many convinced he could be a future 2C. He made the 2025-26 roster out of training camp and is sure to make another run at it this time around.

There may eventually come a choice between Rossi and Cootes as the long-term 2C of the future, and if that’s the case, then the younger, 6’1”, right-shooting Cootes will be at a distinct advantage.

Still, if Pettersson is traded, and if Cootes’ development goes in another direction, it’s definitely possible to picture Rossi as that long-term 2C himself, supporting some burgeoning 1C yet to be drafted. On this, it’s hard not to think of Carolina’s Logan Stankoven, of a similar size to Rossi and currently holding down a 2C spot on a Stanley Cup contender.

Or perhaps it could be Rossi, supporting a different 2C from lower down the roster…

Centre depth is important to any contending team. There’s nothing wrong with a strong 1-2-3 punch down the middle, and that used to be the Canucks’ calling card when they could field a trio of Miller, Pettersson, and Bo Horvat.

So, there is definitely a world where the Canucks draft a future 1C, settle on Pettersson or Cootes as a long-term 2C, and bump Rossi all the way down to being an inordinately skilled third-line centre. But here, we almost have to talk about Rossi’s lack of size again.

NHL teams have a strong preference for size in their bottom-six, and especially at centre. We had a tough time finding any sub-5’11” centres making a difference on any ongoing playoff rosters. The best comparable we could find was Tampa Bay’s Yanni Gourde, who is also 5’9” and plays a similar scrappy and rambunctious game as does Rossi.

But Gourde is a rare example. Rossi could become a veteran depth centre, to be sure, but it’s not the most ideal fit, and there may be a couple of other options yet that might yield better results…

It could be that Rossi’s future with the Canucks is not at centre ice at all. Centres of his size are very often transitioned over to the wing in the long term, or become hybrid wingers, filling in at centre only when necessary. Maybe that’s what the Canucks will need from Rossi.

In this scenario, the Canucks do indeed find a future 1C in the draft and decide on either Pettersson or Cootes as that long-term 2C solution, but maybe find themselves short on skilled wingers. Rossi could be a fit there, as evidenced by his success from the half-wall on the power play this year. As short as the Canucks are on future centres, they’re just as short on wingers, with only Liam Öhgren, Jonathan Lekkerimäki, and perhaps whoever they draft this year as likely top-six options over the true long-term. Adding Rossi to that mix might prove a necessary injection of skill.

The aforementioned Stankoven has been tried on the wing plenty in his young career. A more long-term example might be Rossi’s former teammate Mats Zuccarello, who started out as a centre but became a full-time winger and thrived. On the extreme high-end, we might point to the 5’10” Jake Guentzel, who was drafted as a centre and then became a point-per-game scoring winger over time.

This shows that the Canucks don’t necessarily need Rossi to stay at centre to play a role in their ongoing rebuild plans. Then again, maybe they don’t need Rossi to stay at all…

Rossi turns 25 this September. If the Canucks’ rebuild takes, say, four years to get them back toward the playoffs, then he’ll be around 29 at that time, and should still have some prime years left.

But there is always the possibility that the Canucks see Rossi’s true best utility to the rebuild as a trade chip, one presumably cashed in for even younger pieces. Draft a high-end winger in the 2026 Draft, get another year of really strong development out of Cootes, and suddenly, Rossi starts looking a lot more like a surplus, and one that could bring in a better-than-decent return.

Rossi was thought to have the rough value of a mid-first round pick at the time of his trade to Vancouver, and that value should serve as a good minimum moving forward in a centre-starved market.

The Canucks will also have the opportunity, as they try Rossi out in all the roles we’ve mentioned above, to build up Rossi’s trade value even higher. Whether he’s going to be a 1C or a 2C or a top-six winger in the long run, Rossi should get plenty of reps in those roles as long as he remains in Vancouver, and as his numbers go up, so too does his theoretical return.

In fact, aside from those true untouchables, it’s hard to find another asset on the Canucks’ depth chart that matches Rossi’s potential trade value. That, more than anything, might tip his future in this direction. The Canucks have a real need for more high-end future assets, and precious few opportunities to get them. If Rossi is such an opportunity, then maybe trading him is the most rebuild-responsible choice.

Either way, as we said at the outset, it’s a choice the Canucks will have to make for the future, but that future doesn’t have to be immediate.