Medicine Hat Tigers left wing Hunter Shinkaruk.Medicine Hat Tigers forward Hunter Shinkaruk thinks outside of the box to better his hockey career. <\/p>\n
Heading into his third season with the Tigers, the 18-year-old made a PowerPoint to breakdown what he wanted to accomplish. <\/p>\n
I made the PowerPoint at the start of the year to look at my goals and what I wanted to improve on this year, said Shinkaruk. It helped me visualize what I needed to work on and what I wanted to focus on. It helped with everything in front of me what I wanted to work towards. <\/p>\n
The 5-foot-11, 175-pounders season ended up having its ups and downs. He did tally an impressive 37 goals and 86 points in 64 games, but was unable to raise his game, stats wise anyways, from his previous 91-point season largely because of nagging injuries. <\/p>\n
It seemed as soon as I started going on a roll, Id have to deal with an injury, he said. I would have liked to have done more, but the circumstances made it hard to. <\/p>\n
Shinkaruk taking on a bigger role with Medicine Hat was a challenge he had to face this year. Last season he was in a dynamic 1-2 scoring punch with Anaheim Ducks first-rounder Emerson Etem. This year he had more offensive pressure on his shoulders with Etem gone to the pros and played a bigger role in the dressing room as he was named the teams captain. <\/p>\n
I definitely had to get used to playing without Etem on my line, said Shinkaruk. Hes such a great player and he really makes it easier on his linemates by opening up space. But a lot of the guys stepped up for us this year I really liked being captain. I like helping out the rookies and just being a leader young players can look to. <\/p>\n
Shinkaruks PowerPoint wasnt the first time he looked to unorthodox ways to accomplish his goals. In his sophomore season with the Tigers, he wrote the number 50 down everywhere he could think of to motivate himself to notch that many goals as a 17-year-old. <\/p>\n
I always wrote down the number 50 and would stare at it for a couple minute to just motivate me to score 50 goals, said Shinakruk. I got that idea from a book called The Secret. Its a book about trying to stay positive. I think its really important to keep a positive mindset. <\/p>\n
Unfortunately for Shinkaruk, he came up one-goal short with 49 on the year. He did make an unbelievable last minute effort to reach his goal, though. In the Tigers last game of the season against the Lethbridge Hurricanes, he scored a hat trick and almost potted another on an empty net in the final minute of the contest. <\/p>\n
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NHL draft tracker: Hunter Shinkaruk, Medicine Hat Tigers<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Medicine Hat Tigers left wing Hunter Shinkaruk.Medicine Hat Tigers forward Hunter Shinkaruk thinks outside of the box to better his hockey career. Heading into his third season with the Tigers, the 18-year-old made a PowerPoint to breakdown what he wanted to accomplish Continue reading