Marco Rossi spent the summer back in his native Austria. And, by the looks of his frame upon returning to Minnesota for training camp, he may not have left the weight room.

Other than to a sign a contract extension.

He was back at TRIA Rink on Thursday to prep for his third full NHL season and looking – in the words of head coach John Hynes – “thicker.”

While trade rumors swirled of his supposedly imminent departure from the Wild this summer, Rossi left all of that to his agent and focused on coming back to the U.S. with a changed and chiseled body.

“I went back home and I had good practice. I’m like 196 pounds now, so I feel really strong and fast. So that’s important,” said Rossi, who turns 24 next week. “I think lifting was a big part of how I gained more muscles. I feel much better now and I feel faster. That was like a big point — not just gaining muscles, being fast out there. And I feel very good out there.”

The added bulk comes after a season in which he was one of just a handful of Wild players to skate in all 82 games, posting career highs in goals (24), assists (36) and points (60). With top-end forwards like Kirill Kaprizov and Joel Eriksson Ek shelved for a significant portion of the season, Rossi – despite his previously modest size, by modern NHL standards – took on a net-front role, and all of the potential offense, and physical abuse, that comes along with playing at the top of the crease.

Despite that work, he was effectively demoted to a fourth line role for the playoffs.

But Rossi didn’t complain, and went about his business skating with Yakov Trenin and Justin Brazeau. Rossi had two goals and an assist in the six-game first-round loss. Heading into a restricted free agent summer, he left Minnesota in May not at all sure he would be back with the Wild this fall.

Following endless trade talk on social media, the Wild re-signed Rossi in August to a three-year extension that will pay an average of $5 million per season. Similar to the sentiments expressed by Kaprizov, Rossi said he left contract talks to others and focused on his body. The results are noticeable.

“Marco had a really good summer. Obviously you go through some of those contract situations, but the thing I like about it is he was controlling what he could control, and you can see that he’s bigger and stronger and faster,” Hynes said after their first on-ice session. “I thought he looked great today in practice. He’s got a great mindset about him.”

Trenin, who lost notable weight over the summer, joked that when he got back to Minnesota and saw Rossi’s larger frame, it was a shock.

“He looks so big to me now,” Trenin said. “I’ve got to stop somewhere.”

While most contract extensions happen in early July, Wild general manager Bill Guerin said that they took a bit more time with Rossi, and they’re happy to have him secured for the immediate future.

“Honestly, it’s great to see Marco out there. He looks great. He’s excited,” Guerin said. “These contract negotiations that kind of linger out there, it’s all part of it. Like, it’s not anything new. It just takes time. Sometimes, as a player, you just have to wrap your head around a certain thing. And sometimes as a GM you have to do the same thing. So it’s just a process. It’s not that it’s never going to happen or bad blood or this or that. It’s a process.”

After taking on new roles as the Wild struggled to field a healthy lineup on many nights last season, Rossi feels he and the team will be stronger for the experience going forward, and they have shown glimpses of what they can be when all hands are available.

“It wasn’t easy for sure, but I think a big point was last year a lot of guys now made a step in the right direction,” Rossi said. “We had to take more responsibility, a couple of guys, you take a bigger role. And I think that was big for a team and we kind of wait, obviously, for this season now.”

And in the team’s first training camp scrimmage, it is worth noting that Rossi took the opening faceoff on the top line, between Kaprizov and Matt Boldy.