ST. LOUIS — On Tuesday, Nathan Walker was at the rink in Springfield, Mass., when he got the phone call that he was being called up to the NHL. On Wednesday, he practiced with a handful of Blues at Centene Community Ice Center in Maryland Heights. On Thursday, he skated into Blues lore.
Walker, born in Wales, raised in Australia, made his season debut for the Blues amid the team’s injury and COVID roster crunch and recorded a hat trick in the Blues’ 6-2 victory over the Red Wings before a sellout crowd at Enterprise Center.
It took something like that to overshadow a win by Charlie Lindgren in his first Blues start and the team’s sixth win in a row at home. They also got two assists from Dakota Joshua, another player who wouldn’t be with the team if not for everything that has gone wrong over the past two weeks. Walker, Joshua and Lindgren were all with the Springfield Thunderbirds of the AHL as recently as Nov. 27, less than two weeks ago.
