Again, I hope this is just the writers applying faulty logic and working backwards from what happened last summer. It's their jobs to write things, so they write things.
If it's a reflection on management's thinking, that's trouble. Handing Gaudreau that contract was an overcorrection. Letting that overcorrection dictate what you do with Rossi seems like the opposite of what a GM should do.
Different story if they really don't think Rossi fits with what they're trying to build, but I have yet to see a good argument for that. Khusnutdinov coming over doesn't really affect anything one way or the other at this point.