John Rosso brings experience as a player, coach and scout into new role

Following a 3-2 loss to University of Michigan on March 16, 2001, the men's ice hockey team at University of Nebraska-Omaha was officially eliminated from the CCHA Men's Final Four. Needing only two more wins to earn an automatic bid to the NCAA tournament, the Mavericks couldn't get the job done. Their season was over, as were the playing careers of several players on the roster.

One of those players was defenseman John Rosso, a 6-foot, senior defenseman from Minnetonka, Minnesota.

After 95 career games at the collegiate level and the chance of playing professionally looking unlikely, it appeared that Rosso's lifelong journey in hockey may be nearing an end.

Fast forward roughly 22 years and Rosso's hockey career is far from over. In fact, it's ascending.

One June 29, Rosso was promoted to the position of Director of Amateur Scouting for the Tampa Bay Lightning, where he will oversee all amateur scouting operations, as well as draft preparation and execution.

"John has a great personality and is very popular among our staff members, both on the pro side and the amateur side," Bolts general manager Julien BriseBois shared. "He's got really strong leadership qualities and, at the end of the day, that's a leadership position that he's assuming now.

"He'll be overseeing our amateur scouting efforts and making decisions at the draft for us. We couldn't have a better or more qualified to assume that role going forward."

So, how did that 23-year-old defenseman go from thinking his journey may be over to earning a top position with one of the most successful NHL franchises of the past decade? It all started when he made one big decision in 2004 - he wasn't ready to be done with hockey.

With his playing career behind him, Rosso turned to what he thought made the most sense - coaching. Heading into the 2004-05 NCAA season, he got his start as a volunteer assistant coach at his alma mater Nebraska-Omaha, a role he held for one season before receiving a full-time opportunity as an assistant coach with the North American Hockey League's Alexandria Blizzard.

After three seasons with the Blizzard, Rosso earned greater responsibility when he was named Director of Scouting and Player Development for the United States Hockey League's Sioux Falls Stampede. During his two years in Sioux Falls, over 30 Stampede players received Division I scholarships. Rosso then returned to the college ranks as an assistant coach for Mercyhurst College at the start of the 2010-11 campaign.

Just one year into his new job at Mercyhurst, the Lightning came calling. But Tampa Bay wasn't looking for a coach after Guy Boucher helped guide the team just one win shy of an appearance in the 2011 Stanley Cup Final. The Bolts were looking for a scout and, through some mutual connections, Rosso's name across the desk of Steve Yzerman.

"It all started with a call from Al Murray," Rosso shared. "He told me the Lightning were changing their scouting staff over and looking for someone to cover high school hockey in Minnesota, along with the USHL. Obviously, I told him I was interested.

"But to be honest, I had never thought about scouting before that call. I just figured I was going to be a coach.

"I went down to Tampa and interviewed a couple days later, got offered the job, and accepted it thinking I could always get back into coaching if things didn't work out.

"But everything was great. Obviously, I didn't get back into coaching. I've been fortunate to work with a bunch of great scouts and learn a ton. I'm still learning today."

When Rosso got hired by Tampa Bay, he was used to being at the rink nearly every day. In his new role, that would basically stay the same. The only difference was the rink location was now changing on a daily basis. This was going to require much more traveling.

Living in a western suburb of Minneapolis, Rosso was in the perfect spot. Every Tuesday and Thursday, he would hop in his car and have a boatload of high school hockey games to pick from, all of which required a drive of 30 minutes or less.

On Friday morning, he'd wake up and get right back on the road to catch up on USHL and college hockey action Friday and Saturday. The goal was to hit four games every week, then use Monday and Wednesday to fill out reports, work on scheduling, and catch up on miscellaneous tasks.

The job was busy. Rosso was always on the move. And he was having a blast doing it.

"I was loving it," Rosso shared. "It was all new. I was learning a lot. It wasn't too different from being an assistant coach in junior or college because I was looking at a lot of the same players, but just looking for something different.

"You get down into the details of what the organization is looking for in a player and what they value. It was a lot of learning and a lot of fun."

But with so many leagues to watch and so many games going on at the same time, it surely must be difficult keeping tabs on all the players. To handle that overload, the Lightning scouting department has a process.

"You'd always start with watching the younger kids and making notes on the guys that are too young to even be eligible for the draft," explained Rosso. "With that process, you kind of build up a running list on a group of players. Usually, those initial players are really good if they're on the younger side and you're noticing them in some of these leagues, especially the USHL. If they're 16 years old and playing in the USHL, obviously they have to be a pretty good player within their age group.

"You start tracking those guys earlier and that kind of rolls over as time goes on and they eventually become old enough to be eligible for the draft. That way, for the most part, you kind of know what players you're looking for going into a game.

"It takes a lot of time. I always say you start really wide and, over the course of a season, you get really narrow. All these guys who are draft eligible, you try to give them a couple looks before you decide one way or the other. Then you're just slowly narrowing things down throughout the season."

As Tampa Bay's new Director of Amateur Scouting, Rosso brings years of experience to the table in terms of evaluating young prospects. But, beyond that, he also brings multiple years of pro scouting experience to his new role as well.

In August of 2019, Rosso was promoted to Assistant Director of Player Personnel and made the switch from amateur scouting to pro scouting. BriseBois said the promotion was well deserved for Rosso, who Tampa Bay's front office believed had great potential and the capability to take on more responsibilities.

Working in this capacity for the past four seasons, Rosso's primary point of emphasis has been scouting NHL players in the Western Conference, along with players skating with Western AHL affiliates.

With the promotion came an even greater time commitment for the already busy Rosso, who was regularly traveling six days a week in his new role during the season. As an amateur scout, the primary form of transportation for Rosso was driving, bouncing around states like Iowa, Wisconsin, North Dakota, South Dakota, and Nebraska covering USHL games.

But the move to the pro side was accompanied by boarding passes and SkyMiles, as Rosso spent roughly six days a week hopping on planes and flying to his next destination.

His week typically began with a Tuesday morning flight and ended with a return to Minnesota on Sunday evening. The goal was to watch at least five games during that six-day span. In cities like Chicago or San Jose, there would be days when Rosso would catch two games - an AHL contest in the afternoon and an NHL tilt that same night. Monday was a day to get caught up before it all started again the following Tuesday morning.

"It was great," Rosso said as he described his transition from amateur to pro scouting. "I never played past college. I never played a second of pro. It's a whole different world.

"Obviously, there's less projection on the pro side. On the amateur side, besides the first few picks, you're projecting most of those kids two, four, or even six years out, depending on how deep you go in the draft. That's a long time to say, 'Okay, I think this is what this 18-year-old kid will be when he's a 23-year-old young adult.' You don't know for sure.

"Then, on the pro side, you're typically evaluating the level the player is playing at in that moment. You're asking yourself, 'Is this player someone that can fit into our lineup tomorrow in the same type of role? Is there a fit there?'

"It's way less projection because they've usually hit their ceiling and they're playing at the highest level. They don't have to go multiple levels to get to the NHL, so the projection aspect of things was totally different."

While there isn't as much projection on the pro side of scouting, there are still plenty of challenges. In the case of Tampa Bay, there's the inevitable task of fitting any acquisition's contract onto the books while remaining cap compliant. There is an abundance of desirable players on every roster, but many, if not most of them, are unavailable if they're skating on a contending team.

"You shrink the pool down really quick," Rosso said. "We'll have a mid-season meeting and make a list to figure out what we need and who fits what we're looking for. It's less projection and way more fit. But with the cap and other challenges that factor in, you're going to run into a lot of dead ends."

Now, Rosso has begun his transition back to where he started in scouting - the amateur side. But this time around, his responsibilities will be different. He'll be relying on members of the scouting staff that are in the exact same position he was upon joining the Lightning organization in 2011.

"You really have to rely on your area scouts to give you directions on where you should go," Rosso explained. "There are obviously so many leagues and so many players, so they really know better than you do with the way they watch those leagues nonstop.

"You need some direction. You can't just go in there blind and you don't want to waste your time. You only have so many days you can use, so you want to make sure you're maximizing those days with good viewings. Those guys help direct you where to go. They're the experts in their areas, so you listen to them, talk things out, and try to build a list from there.

"Come draft time, those guys are invaluable. Once you get midway through the draft, they know those players way better than you do. You may have seen him once or twice, but you can't make a decision just on that. They've probably seen that guy 10 times, so you turn to them. The area guys are huge."

After succeeding with the increased responsibilities as Director of Player Personnel, Rosso proved to Tampa Bay's front office that he's ready for even more. With his background in multiple areas of the scouting world, he was the man for the job.

"I think the combination of his experience on the amateur side and now the last few years working on the pro side gives him a really good, holistic view of how a player goes from his draft year to making it to the Tampa Bay Lightning organization," BriseBois said. "I think that insight is going to be invaluable to us as he's making decisions on players that we are hoping are going to eventually play for the Lightning.

"He's prepared for this role because he's seen all of it."

As for Rosso's view of things, he can't wait to get going.

"I'm really excited," said Rosso. "I know and worked with a lot of the guys on the amateur staff, so that part will be good. It will just be about getting back up to speed on the amateur stuff. I'm very excited for that.

"It comes down to one thing. We've got to find players. At the end of the day, no one asks how. They just ask how many."