{"id":393833,"date":"2026-01-07T21:08:07","date_gmt":"2026-01-07T21:08:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/393833\/"},"modified":"2026-01-07T21:08:07","modified_gmt":"2026-01-07T21:08:07","slug":"projected-lineup-jan-7-at-chicago","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/393833\/","title":{"rendered":"Projected Lineup: Jan. 7 at Chicago"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Nathan Walker will return to the lineup on Wednesday night for the St. Louis Blues when they visit the Chicago Blackhawks (8:30 p.m., TNT, HBO Max, 101 ESPN) &#8211; almost three weeks ahead of schedule in his expected return from an upper-body injury.<\/p>\n<p>Walker last played on Dec. 1 vs. Anaheim, then was to be re-evaluated in eight weeks. Now, after missing 16 games and approximately five weeks, he&#8217;s back on the fourth line with Alexey Toropchenko and Oskar Sundqvist.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;He&#8217;s going to be a player tonight. He&#8217;s ready to go,&#8221; Blues Head Coach Jim Montgomery. &#8220;It&#8217;s great, he has great energy, he does all the details and habits the way we want to. His second and third effort is awesome.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;The training staff here did a great job with me and helped me get back as soon as I can,&#8221; Walker said after Wednesday&#8217;s morning skate. &#8220;You hate sitting out and watching the games, but I&#8217;m hoping I can come in (tonight) and do my job and help the guys get two points.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Walker will take Mathieu Joseph&#8217;s spot in the lineup. Sundqvist is also expected to return after sitting out Saturday&#8217;s win vs. Montreal, taking Robby Fabbri&#8217;s spot.<\/p>\n<p>Jordan Binnington will start in goal.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Nathan Walker will return to the lineup on Wednesday night for the St. Louis Blues when they visit&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":393834,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[66],"tags":[385,99],"class_list":{"0":"post-393833","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-nhl","8":"tag-nhl","9":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/393833","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=393833"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/393833\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/393834"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=393833"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=393833"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=393833"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}