CALGARY - Hunter Shinkaruk is back with the Vancouver Canucks, healthy, and off to a great start this pre-season. Cheap Patriots Jerseys China .Playing in front of a bunch of friends and family in his hometown, Shinkaruk scored his second goal in as many games on Thursday, helping the Canucks to a 3-1 victory over the Calgary Flames.Shinkaruk tipped a shot from Kent Huskins on net that was stopped, but he batted the rebound out of mid-air and past Brad Thiessen at the 9:49 mark of the third period.Its been really good. Our team has played really well in both of the games Ive played. Its been fun, said the 19-year-old, who was selected 24th in the 2013 NHL Draft. Its always exciting playing hockey, especially for me that I havent played in a while.Shinkaruk was one of the final cuts for Vancouver at training camp a year ago. Following that was a disappointing season with the Western Hockey Leagues Medicine Hat Tigers that was cut short by a hip injury that limited him to just 18 games.I feel great. I feel 100 per cent. I feel a lot better than I did last year, Shinkaruk said. I got a little bit stronger. I feel a little bit quicker. I feel like its helped me out a lot and Im definitely happy all the hard work has paid off.Known as a goal scorer, he knows thats what he has to contribute if he hopes to make the Canucks.Thats the kind of the role I have to play. I know that, I think everyone else knows that so I put pressure on myself to produce and obviously, scoring in my home town tonight was something that Ill never forget.Chris Higgins and Nicklas Jensen also scored for Vancouver, which improved to 2-1-0 in exhibition play.Sean Monahan scored for Calgary, whose pre-season record falls to 2-2-0.Eddie Lack got the start in net for the Canucks and was perfect on 20 shots before being relieved halfway through the second by Joacim Eriksson. Lack has stopped all 36 shots hes face in his two pre-season appearances.Jonas Hiller made his second start for the Flames. He faced only 12 shots in two periods of action, stopping 10 of them.The buzz going into the game was the much anticipated pre-season debut of Sam Bennett, who the Flames selected fourth overall last June in the NHL Draft, making him Calgarys highest draft pick in team history.Bennett did not disappoint, firing a game-high seven shots on goal in just 16 minutes of ice time. All night he showed glimpses of his raw talent that makes him such an exciting player to watch.Tonight, its very simple, he was our best forward, said Flames coach Bob Hartley. He was exciting, he was on the puck, he was creating lots of chances. Its only a first game but its quite a good impression.Having turned 18 in June, Bennett is young and most are expecting him to return to the Ontario Hockey Leagues Kingston Frontenacs for another year of major junior hockey. But dont tell Bennett that.Whatever management is thinking right now, Im trying to prove that I am ready. I want them to not be able to send me home, said Bennett, who assisted on the Flames only goal a€” scored by 2013 sixth overall pick Sean Monahan. Before, it was all talk. I finally got a game to show everyone what I know Im capable of doing.Hartley acknowledges Bennett has a long way to go to make the Flames this year but he was impressed by the first outing.Sam is skating as fast a€” with or without the puck a€” and there are very few players that can do this. His sense for the puck and how creative he is, its just unbelievable. Hes fast in tight areas like I rarely see with any young players, Hartley said.Hampered to begin training camp by a strained groin, Bennett finally got to participate in a regular practice with the team on Tuesday. He showed no effects of the injury against the Canucks.It was a shift early in the second period where Bennett really had the Scotiabank Saddledome crowd on the edge of their seats.First, he cut in front of the net quickly after looking he was going behind and fooled nearly everyone but could not tuck the puck in the near post. Right after on a shot from the blue-line, Bennett deftly deflected a point shot out of mid-air and on net. Next rush up the ice, he took the puck hard to the net, had his shot stopped, but ended up bulldozing Lack in the process.Definitely I was going on that shift. Anytime I touched the puck, I seemed to get a scoring chance. It was just one of those shifts where everything was going my way, Bennett said. After I got up from running over the goalie, I think I heard (the crowd) cheer a little bit. Definitely thats pretty cool to get the support from the crowd.Those three shots in less than 30 seconds gave Bennett five on the game and at the time, that was more than the Vancouver Canucks team had.Notes: Bennett opened the game centring veteran David Jones and rookie Michael Ferland but Hartley mixed up his lines over much of the second and third period... The only area where Bennett struggled was at the face-off dot, going 4-11... The two teams meet again Friday night in Vancouver... Calgary still has 58 players in camp so expect a bunch of cuts in the very near future. Authentic Isaiah Wynn Jersey . Robert Griffin III, the No. 2 pick in the 2012 draft, set numerous rookie records and was picked AP Offensive Rookie of the Year for the Washington Redskins. Cheap Patriots Jerseys Authentic . Globo TV and other news outlets said early Monday that Scolari will not remain as coach after the national teams failure to win the World Cup at home. http://www.cheappatriotsjerseysauthentic.com/?tag=authentic-jawhaun-bentley-jersey . New Zealand brushed aside England 26-7 to win the event and reclaim top spot in the overall standings. The All Blacks, the defending World Series champions, won their third tournament this season in style, running four tries past England to claim their 11th Cup championship in Hong Kong and first since 2011.TSN Baseball Insider Steve Phillips answers three questions each week. This week, topics cover the Blue Jays rotation, the futures John Gibbons and Alex Anthopoulos, protecting pitchers and a bonus question on his predictions for the MLB playoffs. 1) With J.A. Happ heading to the DL, the Toronto Blue Jays have announced a starting rotation of R.A. Dickey, Drew Hutchison, Mark Buehrle, Brandon Morrow and Dustin McGowan. Should the Blue Jays feel confident with that group or even this early in the season, should they be looking outside the organization for an upgrade? Or should they have kept a prospect like Aaron Sanchez or Marcus Stroman with the big club? The Blue Jays are starting the season with exact rotation they should be using. Aaron Sanchez and Marcus Stroman both need more development but at some point they may be called upon to help. Certainly there are big questions for three-fifths of the starters but there is definitely upside. RA Dickey is just a year removed from his NL Cy Young Award and is predictable and dependable. I cant believe I am saying that about a knuckleballer but it is true. Mark Buerhle is a more than serviceable innings-eater who gives his team a chance to win start after start. After these two though the questions are significant. Brandon Morrow has suffered injuries in each of the past two seasons after looking like a number one starter at times in 2012. Dustin McGowan is throwing in the mid-nineties and is working on a curve ball to go with his devastating slider, but he has thrown just 46 2/3 innings since 2008 because of recurrent shoulder injuries. Drew Hutchison hasnt pitched in the Major Leagues for the past year and a half due to Tommy John surgery but prior to that he looked like he could be a long-term answer for the rotation. Before the season begins players, front office personnel and fans close their eyes and dream about what could be. I can close my eyes and see RA Dickey commanding his dancing knuckler that will baffle hitter. I can envision Buerhle getting a ton of grounders and working quickly getting the powerhouse offense back in the dugout and scoring a ton of runs. I can picture Brandon Morrow rifling his fastball by the games biggest sluggers and logging a ton of strikeouts. I can imagine McGowan and Hutchison fulfilling the potential that they once had as well. It could happen just that way. But it probably wont. My experience is that the more questions you enter with the more things that will likely go wrong. There is a bunch of unpredictability in this rotation. Depth will be important. It is safe to assume that health will be an issue at some point because it has been an issue in the past. Esmil Rogers and Todd Redmond may make starts if necessary. But Alex Anthopolous is going to have to keep working the phones to look for upgrades. Early in the season other clubs arent typically trading good pitchers but he will need to be ready for when they do become available. So when you close your eyes and dream just hope it is not a nightmare. 2) Is manager John Gibbons on the hot seat with the Blue Jays? If the team is slow out of the gate again this year, will he be replaced? Are his and Alex Anthopouloss future tied together (if one goes, the other follows him out the door)? I dont think John Gibbons is on the hot seat during the season this year. I know there were big expectations last year but the collapse wasnt Gibbons fault. The starting rotation just fell apart on him as Morrow and Josh Johnson got hurt and Ricky Romero imploded. Jose Reyes injury crushed the offense early in the season and more injuries followed. The expectations are less this year than a year ago. It certainly behooves the Jays to get off to a good start so they can start to believe in themselves but Gibbons cant pitch for his team and the staff will be the key. I have never been a believer that managers and general managers are tied at the hip. The manager needs to look at the GM as his boss. Clearly Gibbons was brought back to the Jays because of his relationship with Anthopolous but if Anthopolous thinks a change needs to be made he will have to make it. If ownership gets to a point where they believe the roster is flawed and they decide to make a decision on the general manager it is unlikely Gibbons would survive a change in regime. Anthoplous can possibly survive the firing of Gibbons but I dont believe Gibbons would survive the firing of Anthopolous. As it stands today both the manager and general manager are on firm ground as they should be. They just need to be honest with themselves and their bosses about what the expectations are with the roster they have. The owners can hope to be competitive in the tough AL East but if they expect to win it then both Anthopolous and Gibbons are in trouble. This is a roster for which you can hope but not expect great things. 3) With Reds starter Aroldis Chapman and Rays starter Matt Moore both being hit in the head by comebackers to the mound in spring training, is it time for Major League Baseball and/or the players union to implement mandatory pitcher protection? It seems that pitchers have become more annd more vulnerable over the past few seasons. Authentic Ryan Izzo Jersey. nbsp; Fortunately, we have avoided major catastrophe but we shouldnt be shocked if a pitcher were to be killed by a hit ball. We have just been lucky so far. I am a firm believer that we should never wait for someone to be killed to make a change. Baseball already did that once. Base coaches wear helmets now because a minor league first base coach was hit in the head by a line drive and killed. If protecting pitchers is being considered then protect them. Lets not wait for a tragedy. It is currently optional for pitchers to wear the new protective headgear that was developed by MLB for this year. The feedback so far is that the hats look funny and are not overly comfortable. MLB needs to keep refining the protective hats to make them functional. This needs to be a priority for the Players Association as well. Protective hats for pitchers need to be made mandatory at the minor league level initially. Let the kids get comfortable with them so by the time they are big leaguers it is commonplace. Once the hat is advanced enough make it mandatory for major league pitchers to wear. There is no clock in baseball but we need to put a clock on this. Every pitch thrown puts a pitcher at risk. Please hurry. 4) With the second and third opening days approaching for Major League Baseball it is time to make predictions. Here is how I see the American League:AL East AL Central AL West 1) Boston Detroit Oakland2) Tampa Bay* Kansas City** LA Angels3) Baltimore Cleveland Texas4) Blue Jays Minnesota Seattle5) New York Yankees Chicago Houston * first Wild Card ** second Wild Card AL CHAMPION: Oakland As defeat Detroit AL AWARDS AL MVP: Miguel Cabrera, DetroitAL MVP: Justin Verlander, DetroitAL Rookie of Year: Yordano Ventura, Kansas CityAL Manager of Year: Ned Yost, Kansas City Here are my predictions for the NL:NL East NL Central NL West1) Washington St Louis LA Dodgers 2) Atlanta** Milwaukee SF Giants*3) NY Mets Cincinnati Arizona4) Philadelphia Pittsburgh Colorado5) Miami Chicago San Diego* first Wild Card ** second Wild Card NL CHAMPION: Washington Nationals defeat Dodgers NL AWARDS NL MVP: Freddie Freeman, Atlanta BravesNL CY Young: Stephen Strasburg, Washington NationalsNL Rookie of Year: Gregory Polanco, Pittsburgh Pirates Manager of the Year: Mike Matheny, St Louis Cardinals WORLD SERIES CHAMPION: Washington Nationals defeat Oakland As LET THE GAMES BEGIN…..PLAY BALL!!! 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