Torrey Mitchell: The Long Road Back for the Hobbled Sharks Center

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Joe Pavelski, Devin Setoguchi, Dan Boyle, and Ryan Vesce.

These are four of the San Jose Sharks that have battled injuries during this young season.

But none of them have had to go through what center Torrey Mitchell has.

Heading into the 2008-09 season, I was excited to watch the Sharks at one of their first days of training camp.

On that day, Sept. 21, the excitement of seeing team teal again turned into anxiousness when one of the players flew into the right goal post during a scrimmage at Sharks Ice in San Jose.

The player stayed down for several minutes and the building was hushed until the injured Shark was finally helped off the ice.

A roaring ovation awaited him.

With all the commotion surrounding the net, coupled with the fact that it was hard to see the players' faces and numbers from where I was sitting, I could not tell who the fallen Shark was.

It was Torrey Mitchell.

He had broken his leg and was projected to miss a minimum of two months.

My reaction was most likely the same as the rest of San Jose's fan base: Sadness, frustration, fear for Mitchell.

After suffering a setback in a minor league rehab start, Mitchell did not return until the middle of the Sharks' first-round playoff series against the Anaheim Ducks.

But he has not played a regular season NHL game in over a calendar year.

Mitchell made his NHL debut with the Sharks in the 2007-08 season. He rapidly morphed into a fan favorite with his lightning-fast speed and rare combination of skill and determination.

No. 17 finished that season with 10 goals and 10 assists.

Mitchell was one of only four players to play every game that season.

This company includes forwards Joe Thornton and Joe Pavelski, and defenseman Marc-Edouard Vlasic.

Going into the 2008-09 season, the third-line center was virtually a lock to make the team after his outstanding rookie season.

But when I found out Mitchell was indeed the injured Shark, I could not help but draw comparisons to an on-ice incident involving Mitchell during his rookie campaign.

In a home game for San Jose against the Minnesota Wild, Mitchell raced against Minnesota's Kurtis Foster to beat out an icing call.

Both players went down, but only one got up.

A visibly shaken-up Mitchell learned later that Foster had broken his leg in the accidental hit.

Foster went on to have season-ending surgery.

I'm not a very superstitious guy, but it is way too easy to draw the parallels between the stories of these players' injuries.

One year after the injury took place.

I was expecting to see the fourth-round (126th overall) pick in 2004 to be at the first team practice in September.

But a few days before training camp started, the 5'11", 190-pound forward was reported to be sitting out for a little while with tendinitis in his knee.

All season long, the question of the year has been "When will Torrey Mitchell be back?"

A couple weeks ago, a friend of mine who knows the Sharks even got a chance to skate with Mitchell, who says he is close to coming back and will be better than ever.

The jury is still out on the "better than ever" part, but the "close to coming back" part was echoed on a recent Sharks broadcast.

The native of Montreal, Quebec, has been skating in San Jose at the scene of the crime for a few weeks now.

During the Sharks' home win against the Colorado Avalanche on Friday night, it was said that Mitchell is skating without pain for the first time and he will join the team on their upcoming road trip.

This trip starts off in Carolina as San Jose comes off a 2-0-0 homestand.

In the absence of the 24-year-old forward, the offseason acquisitions, made by General Manager Doug Wilson, have contributed admirably and have played very well.

Scott Nichol, Manny Malhotra, and Jed Ortmeyer were brought in to add the grit, intensity, and ability to kill penalties that they lost when Mitchell went down.

When Mitchell returns, the Sharks will be gaining a speedy center that head coach Todd McLellan said might be moved to the wing before the season started.

He is a player that has proven to be a great penalty killer and shorthanded threat in his young career as well; he could even see some more power-play time depending on the health status of guys like Pavelski and Setoguchi.

There is not a set date for Mitchell's return to the lineup, but it will likely be sooner rather than later.

And he will get just as big an ovation when he steps on the ice as he did when he was helped off the ice over a year ago.

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