Wild draft center Marco Rossi with No. 9 overall pick

Bill Guerin has made his first draft selection as general manager of the Minnesota Wild.

With the ninth overall pick in the 2020 NHL draft, Minnesota selected center Marco Rossi.

Rossi, who stands 5-foot-9 and weighs 185 pounds,  spent the last two seasons playing for the Ottawa 67s of the OHL.

In 2019-20, Rossi led the OHL and all players in the Canadian Hockey League (OHL, QMJHL, WHL) in assists (81) and points (120) and scored 39 goals. He was named the OHL’s Most Outstanding Player of the Year, becoming the second European import player to win the award.

“Marco is a two-way center with incredible vision, skill and compete level,” Wild director of amateur scouting Judd Brackett said.

The 19-year-old is the first center drafted by the Wild in the first round since Wisconsin’s Luke Kunin in 2016.

Rossi is the fifth Austrian-born player to be selected in the first round, joining Thomas Vanek (2003), Michael Grabner (2006), Andre Burakovsky (2013) and Marko Dano (2013).

Minnesota has had the ninth overall pick twice before in franchise history. The Wild used the No. 9 selection to draft forward James Sheppard in 2006 and forward Mikael Granlund in 2010.

Elsewhere in the draft, the consensus top pick Alexis Lafreniere went to the New York Rangers at No. 1 overall. Defenseman Jake Sanderson, a freshman at North Dakota, was the first American-born player off the board, going fifth overall to Ottawa.

The Wild currently have five more selections in the 2020 draft, which continues Wednesday morning for the final six rounds.