WJC: 2024 Team Latvia

[Namejs]

And the goal has been achieved.

If we can keep playing like we did against Germany, we should be fine against the US.

Beating them would be a small miracle, though.

 

[vlady]

You asked for it.

Slovakia has more players, more rinks, a better domestic league and a deeper prospect pool with more elite (NHL-tier) talent. That is the difference.

The issue here is that in the Slovak eyes, that difference is huge or at least big, while in reality it's not. This doesn't bother me, but what bothers me is that in a roundabout way it affects the chances of Latvian prospects making it in the NHL.

Slovakia had its golden age a while back, and this has somehow made everyone in Slovakia consider themselves to still be a leading hockey nation. That same golden age has created an image of Slovaks being an elite hockey nation in North America, which introduces one type of bias into NHL draft selections. Your branding is better.

If you had a Romanian player in, say, WHL with the same number of points, age, physical characteristics, skating, etc., as a Slovakian prospect, he would not be selected, while the Slovak kid might get drafted in the last couple of rounds of the NHL draft.

Half of the Slovak team was drafted, but if you look into the actual rate of production of, say, their drafted forwards, it's not as rosy as it sounds.

Why was Adam Zlnka drafted?
Davis Borozinskis has the exact same player profile and rate of production in USHL, but he never even made the NHL draft rankings, yet they're pretty much the same calibre dudes.

Why was Niks Fenenko never drafted?

Every year there's 1 or 2 players like that who simply get snubbed at the NHL draft. Even here on hfboards I see Latvian prospects being named as coming from an exotic hockey market. There's top prospects, 15, 16 year olds who are not getting the attention they deserve because of this systemic bias.

The reason for this systemic bias is that the Slovak teams are deeper and capable of standing their own and scoring more goals at the U18 WJC and the U20 WJC. From time to time they even go on a deeper play-off run and then it's all hands on deck. Let's draft them all! Their stats look better and it creates the impression of them being better players than they are. The hype is real.

Which is why playing at the WJC vs. Canada and losing 0-10 is a bit of a double edged sword for Latvia, because humans have bounded rationality, and unfortunately NHL GMs and scouts are human too, and are quick to label the entire team as hot garbage.

Adam Gajan is going to be great they say. Yet Deivs Rolovs has better stats at NAHL than Gajan did last year. Rolovs has never even been mentioned as a draft prospect. And what do I hear from the TSN commentators when our 4th line and bottom pairing Ds make dumb plays in front of him? In a way he's hostage to being a part of this team, as his numbers at the WJC are bound to be worse than a comparable goalie's on a better team. I hope Rolovs gets to play in NCAA next season. It would be interesting to compare his and Gajan's stats over there.

People don't seem to realize that smaller hockey nations have a smaller talent pool to select from and the difference between their top line and their 4th line is much bigger than on Team Canada. Our 4th liners will likely never play pro hockey. How is this related to how good our goalie or the top line winger is?

And this same line of erroneous reasoning is pretty much the only reason why Slafkovsky got drafted as the literal 1st pick. He scored a lot of goals for the national team against France and Kazakhstan, while being mediocre at the Finnish league. Their stats get padded and they get overhyped due to point production in a very small sample size. There is this Finnish player named Aatu Jämsen. Same leagues, same point production as Slafkovsky, smaller frame. He never even made the Finnish WJC squad and barely got drafted. If he was born in Bratislava, I would bet my house on him getting drafted several rounds higher.

It's not the Slovak fault that NHL draft selections are biased and imperfect, but my point is that it's not always a very precise way of measuring talent or a way of proving that someone's better than an undrafted kid.

There's too much weight being put on the WJC and U18s. There's a better, fact- and data-based approach in comparing players across all sort of leagues, including NAHL and the Latvian league.

I don't have the excel file on this device, but it's a simple concept. You just plot player point production with both Latvian league and NAHL experience and you adjust it for age and player usage, if possible. NAHL and the Latvian league were very similar about 2 years ago when I did the analysis, with Latvian league coming slightly on top.

The Latvian league has changed with several Estonian and Lithuanian teams coming in and we have probably over a dozen new NAHL players, so the numbers might have sightly changed since then, but I am very sure of NAHL and the Latvian league being roughly comparable/at least on par.

Cherrypicking Adam Zlnka is hilarious. Zlnka was injured in his draft year and only played 10 games all season (had 4 points). Coyotes took a gamble on him, don't know why, they are a weird organization. But let's compare Zlnka to Davis Borozinkis who had 16pts in 54 games in his draft year. Not really draft worthy numbers. Comparing their numbers in post draft seasons is completely irrelevant as to their draft selections or non-selections.

Slafkovsky vs. Jamsen is also hilarious. Jamsen played in the U18 league in his draft year, U20 league in his D+1 and only entered Liiga in his D+2 (and still had worse stats than 17-year old Slaf). And for the record, Slaf didn't score against France and only scored one goal against Kazakhstan. Let's just ignore the fact that he was the Olympics MVP at 17 and had 9pts in 8 games at the senior worlds (better numbers than Fantilli and Carlsson had in their draft years). I am not saying that Slaf is better than Fantilli and Carlsson. Slaf's Liiga numbers were not great, sure, but his play in not one, but two senior international tournaments, have shown that he was a better prospect than the Liiga numbers suggested. It should also be noted that his Liiga numbers improved post Olympics.

Did you think you wouldn't be fact checked? You are comparing apples and oranges.

The Gajan vs. Rolovs example was debunked by @WhiskeyYerTheDevils (thanks).

But how about the other Slovaks? You make it seem like all of them were drafted higher than they should have been drafted. And it seems that your argument is that it's only the Slovak players who are overrated. I am not saying there is no bias among the scouts, but saying it's skewed in favor of Slovaks (and no other nation apparently) because we won some medals in the early 2000s is just wild.

 

[Namejs]

It seems like you aren't actually reading my posts, nor getting the very basic point I'm trying to get across.

It makes it completely pointless to respond and further elaborate on the same points made, if you're misrepresenting most of what I wrote.

It is obvious you have a major homer bias and you're not able to get through that cognitive bias and form fact-based opinions.

Slafkovsky collected
2 pts vs Kazakhstan
2 pts vs France
2 pts vs Italy
2 pts vs Denmark
1 pts vs Switzerland

All of this while playing on the top line/PP.

Once again, scoring 2 points against Italy or France with Tatar on your line against opposition that mainly plays in ICEHL or the French league is worth less than scoring 2 points in a French league game on an actual French team.

This is literally the basic point I was referring to earlier. A small sample size that creates an illusion of a player being better than he is if you only look at the numbers.

Slafkovsky scored 7 goals on about 18 shots. I'm not sure if you know anything at all about hockey analytics, but to somehow assume that scoring on 2 in 5 shots is feasible long-term, well, let's just say it's not based on how things work in what I call reality.

If a basketball player makes 12 out of 18 3 pointers, this literally is not a meaningful data point due to limited sample size. What we can most definitely deduce though, is that we must reduce his production rate based on the actual feasible scoring efficiency of an elite forward, the ceiling of which is about 15% give or take.

You go on to say thay, hey, he scored 7 goals at the World Champs and was given the MVP award, but these are just accolades. They don't constitute a valid data point.

As I said, he padded his stats due to a) usage b) linemates 3) weak oppo 4) luck.

I remember writing about this during the tournament and telling the Slovak posters all of this and saying that Slafkovsky is being massively overrated.

How is he doing in the NHL now?

And nothing here has been debunked, you're just having trouble with reading comprehension.

 

[vlady]

It seems like you aren't actually reading my posts, nor getting the very basic point I'm trying to get across.

It makes it completely pointless to respond and further elaborate on the same points made, if you're misrepresenting most of what I wrote.

It is obvious you have a major homer bias and you're not able to get through that cognitive bias and form fact-based opinions.

Slafkovsky collected
2 pts vs Kazakhstan
2 pts vs France
2 pts vs Italy
2 pts vs Denmark
1 pts vs Switzerland

All of this while playing on the top line/PP.

Once again, scoring 2 points against Italy or France with Tatar on your line against opposition that mainly plays in ICEHL or the French league is worth less than scoring 2 points in a French league game on an actual French team.

This is literally the basic point I was referring to earlier. A small sample size that creates an illusion of a player being better than he is if you only look at the numbers.

Slafkovsky scored 7 goals on about 18 shots. I'm not sure if you know anything at all about hockey analytics, but to somehow assume that scoring on 2 in 5 shots is feasible long-term, well, let's just say it's not based on how things work in what I call reality.

If a basketball player makes 12 out of 18 3 pointers, this literally is not a meaningful data point due to limited sample size. What we can most definitely deduce though, is that we must reduce his production rate based on the actual feasible scoring efficiency of an elite forward, the ceiling of which is about 15% give or take.

You go on to say thay, hey, he scored 7 goals at the World Champs and was given the MVP award, but these are just accolades. They don't constitute a valid data point.

As I said, he padded his stats due to a) usage b) linemates 3) weak oppo 4) luck.

I remember writing about this during the tournament and telling the Slovak posters all of this and saying that Slafkovsky is being massively overrated.

How is he doing in the NHL now?

And nothing here has been debunked, you're just having trouble with reading comprehension.

Fact check: Slaf had 24 shots on goal at the Olympics.

Regardless, I never said his shooting percentage was sustainable. You are sidetracking here. Slaf's numbers are not that important to your overall point. Neither is his current play in the NHL. If Slaf was overrated as a prospect, it wasn't because of his nationality.

Your argument is this: Slovak players are overrated by scouts because they still view Slovakia as some sort of a hockey power since the success of our golden generation.

What have you provided to support this argument? Absolutely nothing of value.

You also posted this gem in another thread:

Honestly, I will come off as a Slovak-hater, but even just looking at the point production of their players in CHL, it seems to me that their prospects get overrated on a regular basis. See for example Team Latvia, we have kids that never got drafted and are playing at the same level, while half of the Slovaks are drafted. Honestly, it's a mystery to me. I'm not hating on anyone, but it is something that I've noticed.

So can you name names of the Latvian players who play at the same level as the drafted players from Slovakia? I'll even concede Adam Zlnka as a good example from you. Do you have any more examples?

Look, if your point was that Slovak kids have a slight advantage over Latvian kids when it comes to NHL draft chances, I would say ok, there may be something there because the scouts are much more likely going to watch the Slovak league than the Latvian league. But when it comes to players who are playing overseas, I don't believe there is any nationality bias.

But you went even further than that. You are saying that this bias is working in favor of Slovakia even when compared to other nations. You mentioned a Finnish player here whom you compared to Slafkovsky and said that if he was born in Bratislava he would get drafted higher. You can't expect me to just take this abuse. You cannot prove your assertion.

Btw, I have nothing against Latvian hockey. Just to stay on the topic of this thread, it's nice that they made the quarterfinals. They are a likeable team with great fans.

 

[Vikz]

So can you name names of the Latvian players who play at the same level as the drafted players from Slovakia? I'll even concede Adam Zlnka as a good example from you. Do you have any more examples?

Look, if your point was that Slovak kids have a slight advantage over Latvian kids when it comes to NHL draft chances, I would say ok, there may be something there because the scouts are much more likely going to watch the Slovak league than the Latvian league. But when it comes to players who are playing overseas, I don't believe there is any nationality bias.

Not sure where namejs is getting that "Slovak bias" from. He is well-known for his argueing for the sake of argueing behavior and skewing data in his favor, as was mentioned regarding the Rolovs - Gajan discussion.

I do believe that, when drafting, there is bias against Latvians. However, it probably is in favor of the top-8 nations, not just Slovaks. If anything, I would argue that Liiga is massively overrated. A lot of top prospects like Kakko or Kotkaniemi are underperforming, and this case might include Slaf, even though he probably went that high not because of his Liiga production. It seems that the finnish league is considered on par with SHL by NHL scouts. Maybe they dont distinguish scandinavians, IDK. In reality, it has been similar Czech league for a long time now.

Regarding Latvians that deserved to be drafted, but werent, the most obvious are Niks Fenenko and Peteris Bulans. Fenenko had 40 points in QMJHL in his draft year as a D, while having a late august birthday and thus being almost a year younger than most other prospects. Bulans next year had almost the same production rate, but played less games due to injury. While the sole Slovakian drafted D in this WJC, Strbak, was taken in the second round after a 18 point, -20 season in the USHL. Now I admit I never seen him play, and there may be aspects to his game that are not reflected in stats. But when players play in comparable leagues, one has 0.75 PPG and the other one 0.4 PPG, and the first one gets completely skipped, while the other one is taken at #45, this certainly raises eyebrows. Just for comparison - being taken at #45 would instantly make him the third highest Latvian to ever be drafted - behind notable 90's star Ozolinsh and Girgensons, who is in his 11th NHL season. Yet for a Slovak, thats a common case after geting 18 points in a junior league.

 

[Namejs]

Fact check: Slaf had 24 shots on goal at the Olympics.

Regardless, I never said his shooting percentage was sustainable. You are sidetracking here. Slaf's numbers are not that important to your overall point. Neither is his current play in the NHL. If Slaf was overrated as a prospect, it wasn't because of his nationality.

Your argument is this: Slovak players are overrated by scouts because they still view Slovakia as some sort of a hockey power since the success of our golden generation.

What have you provided to support this argument? Absolutely nothing of value.

You also posted this gem in another thread:



So can you name names of the Latvian players who play at the same level as the drafted players from Slovakia? I'll even concede Adam Zlnka as a good example from you. Do you have any more examples?

Look, if your point was that Slovak kids have a slight advantage over Latvian kids when it comes to NHL draft chances, I would say ok, there may be something there because the scouts are much more likely going to watch the Slovak league than the Latvian league. But when it comes to players who are playing overseas, I don't believe there is any nationality bias.

But you went even further than that. You are saying that this bias is working in favor of Slovakia even when compared to other nations. You mentioned a Finnish player here whom you compared to Slafkovsky and said that if he was born in Bratislava he would get drafted higher. You can't expect me to just take this abuse. You cannot prove your assertion.

Btw, I have nothing against Latvian hockey. Just to stay on the topic of this thread, it's nice that they made the quarterfinals. They are a likeable team with great fans.

I might be coming off as being caustic due to my manner of discussing things.

That is on me. That is how I discuss things. Don't let that cloud your judgment.

When it boils down to the actual points being made, you just agreed with me entirely.

The only mistake you're making is that you're misunderstanding me in terms of how bias affects Slovakian players. It affects every nation.

I already brought up a Latvian prospect who was massively overrated as well. It is not unique to Slovakia in any way.

Slovakia is of particular interest to me, because they are one of the two closest of the better teams along with Germany, being half a tier above us, so the overlap in talent and the leagues played is very large when you look at the Latvian, Slovakian prospects.

Since I am spending a lot of time researching Latvian prospects, I notice things and pay attention also to Slovak prospects.

My examples are not meant to show that Gajan should not have been drafted or that Slafkovsky is useless. I am simply illustrating the bias by showing how large the gap can be in player assessment due to systemic bias.

Rolovs is not better than Gajan. But the difference between them is not as large as the NHL scouting or NHL draft would indicate.

Slovak players tend to get overrated, while Latvians tend to get underrated. That is my basic point.

Canadian, American, enter any other country here, in similar circumstances as those experienced by Slovakia, also get overrated, as I mentioned before.

Latvians never make medal runs at the U18s or the WJC, which is why we never get the hype and the attention your prospects receive.

I already laid down the arguments why this doesn't make any sense.

And note that the gap in being overrated and underrated is not enormous either. It simply means that you have 1 or 2 extra NHL draftees while we get 1 or 2 fewer on average. Over time, this aggregates to actually affecting how many of our players get to play in the AHL and have a fighting chance to make the NHL. Better training, better opportunities.

Being drafted in the 7th round or not being drafted might actually entail a big difference in how a player's career plays out. An undrafted QMJHL graduate might only get a spot in ECHL. If he only gets playing time in the lower pairing or bottom 6, this can affect his resume to the point where he's going to be forced playing in Mestis, the Slovakian league or even the Latvian league.

Also, obviously, NHL draftees are much higher in the pecking order when you look at AHL rosters. So an undrafted player of similar calibre might be forced to play on the 4th line and go through another round of systemic bias as his production in the AHL is going to be much lower due to usage.

It becomes harder to get noticed and to get a decent contract. Some of these players will giv up their dream and once they are 23 or 24 they will simply opt for a bigger paycheck in a shoddy league somewhere in Europe so that they can pay the bills.

Slovakia has a good and improving hockey programme and I'm not willing to take away that from you or belittle your success.

It's just unfair and frustrating to be looking at how our prospects get underrated from the sidelines as a Latvian fan. And this has nothing to do with Slovakia. Slovakia is only dragged into this because a lot of your prospects play in the same leagues as ours do. Germans usually play in Germany and Swiss kids play locally as well.

 

[Namejs]

Watching the Canada game and I noticed the TSN guys mentioning Cibulka and how productive he is at the Quebec league multiple times.

Fenenko has scored 3 points fewer and he's a +22 on his team. He played 30 minutes against Germany and had by far the most ice time against Canada, Sweden and Finland. The goal differential for Latvia was -20. His +/- stands at 0 right now.

Undrafted, playing lights out with great defensive presence, great puck possession and a big reach. Rock solid tournament by Fenenko.

 

[Namejs]

Looking at our potential roster next year, I see a gaping hole in the top 6, especially at Center.

At least one or two of our forwards has to step up a level and improve. Our bottom 6 will be similar to this year, our D will be very solid, not much of a change in goalies. But since we have a gap and a slightly weaker 05 generation, we might have to use a few 07s and 08s, as I already suggested doing this year.

Some candidates would be Murnieks, Flugins, Osmanis, Berzkalns (will be playing in USHL as a 16 year old) and the U18 leading forwards Macijevskis, Pumpins and others. Ansons has to improve as well.

I am putting a lot of hope on Murnieks. It will be very interesting to see how the kids do next season.

In any case, my preliminary gut feeling is that we might have to focus on not getting relegated. The generation after that does look golden at this point and time and we could be pretty stacked at the 2026 WJC.