Oskar Sundqvist has been cleared for contact and his return to the lineup is likely now just a matter of days — not weeks.

“He’s going through protocol right now,” Blues Head Coach Drew Bannister said about Sundqvist’s status after a recent team practice. “It’s definitely probably not week to week, more day to day. He’s still a little ways away… it might be a little longer, like five to six to seven days, which takes him to later on next week. We’ll see how it goes over the next few days at least.”

Sundqvist suffered a torn ACL in his right knee in late March of last season and underwent surgery to repair the injury soon after. The rehabilitation was expected to take six months, putting Sundqvist right on track for an October return.

“He’s put the work in,” Bannister added. “He’s really pushed himself, stayed here in the summer, put in a lot of work to get himself rehabbed. The work he’s put in through training camp and conditioning to make sure that when he was ready to play, he’d be ready.

“He looks good out there.”