“He absolutely lit it up for us and then he got hit, he got that concussion and it kind of lingered on for like a year plus,” said Blues forward Paul Stastny, a former Av. “It was frustrating for him and he was kind of going through mixed emotions, so he was very up and down all the time.”

Stastny, who is close friends with Mueller, joked that that’s when the tattoos started multiplying.

“I don’t think he had anything else to do,” Stastny said, laughing. “He just kept adding and adding and adding. But that’s just ‘Mules’ for you.”

Mueller returned to the Colorado lineup in 2011-12 and scored seven goals in 32 games, but his contract expired at the end of the season. He signed a one-year, $1.7 million contract with Florida, and scored eight goals in 43 games, but interest in him around the NHL dried up the following offseason.

“It was a big shock, it really was ... I took it really hard,” Mueller said. “But you know what, sometimes in life you need a big shock like that. I’m the first one to say that I’ve had a little more shock than anyone else with my career and with my life. But on the same note, what pushes you away makes you stronger in ways that you want to get back here.”