Forward targeting Thursday against Utah; missed five games with lower-body injury
ST. LOUIS – Oskar Sundqvist is on the verge of returning to the St. Louis Blues lineup.
The forward, who has missed the first five games with a lower-body injury, is likely to miss a sixth when the Blues (3-2-0) host the Los Angeles Kings (1-3-2) on Tuesday but be ready when they close a four-game homestand against the Utah Mammoth.
“Good, I feel good,” Sundqvist said. “… Thursday is probably more realistic, get a couple more practices in and just get up to speed a little bit. But it feels good. Obviously excited to come back.”
Sundqvist, 31, is just glad he avoided a major injury when he caught a rut in the ice during a Sunday practice on Oct. 5, days before the opening of the regular season.
“I knew it wasn’t my knee or hip, so that was good,” Sundqvist said. “Honestly when something like that happens, you feel it right away that something’s wrong. You’re hoping that it’s the best possible outcome and that it’s not really bad. We were happy with the MRI results and not needing surgery and just rest it and rehab it. It ended up being not horrible.
“Stuff like that happens a lot with the injury I got. You get stuck on the ice and kind of nothing you can really do about it. Just bad luck. Hopefully that was it for this year. I’m really excited to get going and playing again. Even though it’s only been a couple weeks, it’s felt like it’s been a couple months. It’s more nervous sitting up there watching than actually playing too.”
It was the second full practice with the team for Sundqvist, who is in his eighth season with the Blues in his second stint; he was skating on right wing during drills with Nathan Walker on left wing and Nick Bjugstad at center.
“I’ve been skating for, this would be a week today,” Sundqvist said. ‘I started last Monday, just feeling it out and kind of taking it easy the first couple days. Then I started ramping it up. Obviously it’s a lot more fun being in practice with all the guys than doing it yourself.”
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Blues coach Jim Montgomery, who acknowledged Sundqvist is “ close. Might be one step away,” was getting the attention of players at practice on Monday.
“Practice wasn’t great,” he said. “Want to know the real reason or the politically correct reason? Politically correct reason is we get happy after we win hockey games and we don’t practice the right way.”
And the real reason?
“I’m not telling,” he joked.
“After a day off, always the first couple of drills are sloppy,” Montgomery added. “It doesn’t matter really what team, but you want to try and gain the pride in your passing right away and the execution and speed you need. You’re not always going to have all those three things, but you want to try and start practice on time.”
The Blues are coming off a solid and impressive 3-1 win over the Dallas Stars on Saturday, and it's a matter of parking -- even the good -- results and channeling those good habits moving forward.
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