U18: 2024 Team Latvia

[Namejs]

This is a good year for junior hockey in Latvia, probably one of the better ones. And the next year is likely going to be even better.

The U18 team is decently balanced, the goalies are a bit of a question mark, defensive depth could be better, but there are some really nice prospects all around.

Just saw our last exhibition game vs. Sweden. We lost 0-4, but the game was a lot more even than the score would indicate. Plenty of chances on both ends, but Maurins was not up to snuff today, let in a couple of softies.

I had some doubts about Murnieks ('08) making the team at all after his disappearance from the Latvian league play-offs after a likely injury(?), but today he was one of the best players on the ice among both teams.

Several good scoring chances, at least one breakaway. Future 1st rounder. Currently playing as 2C and on PP as well. As a 15 year old.

List of notable NHL prospects:
Uljanskis (D) 2024 ~3rd round
Osmanis (F) 2025 prospect
Murnieks (F) 2026 top prospect
Flugins (F) 2026 prospect
Klaucans (F) 2026 prospect

I expect us to beat Norway and have close games against Slovakia and Finland even though our team will be on the younger side.

Click to read more...

 

[Hockeyfrilla]

delete

 

[LeProspector]

Anyone have the roster?

 

[Namejs]

Anyone have the roster?

Today's roster, not the final one.

 

[Vikz]

List of notable NHL prospects:
Uljanskis (D) 2024 ~3rd round
Osmanis (F) 2025 prospect
Murnieks (F) 2026 top prospect
Flugins (F) 2026 prospect
Klaucans (F) 2026 prospect

I expect us to beat Norway and have close games against Slovakia and Finland even though our team will be on the younger side.

Wonder if its the youngest U18 team Latvia ever iced. The future does look bright, but its extremely important not to get relegated this year and the next one, so that our potentially best generation ever does not end up playing Hungary and Japan in front of scouts' junior assistant's secretaries when it matters the most.

Is Ansons still in the mix? I have no idea how he managed to score at a 0.1 pace in the Q this year. It takes a special kind of effort to avoid the puck in a league where teams routinely score 5+ a night. His 2 PPG in Latvia are still reaaaaally impressive for a 17 year old, and on the champion team nonetheless. So maybe he turns it around in WJC and somebody decides to take a shot on this 100kg beast. Otherwise, his Canadian voyage might as well screw up his career before it even started.

Is Klaucans a legit prospect? I have no ideas how to compare those American U16 leagues, but Berzkalns at least has a guaranteed USHL spot next year. And Klaucans, well, according to eliteprospects, has a dad, who assisted Sorokins in the past. Go figure.

 

[Namejs]

Wonder if its the youngest U18 team Latvia ever iced. The future does look bright, but its extremely important not to get relegated this year and the next one, so that our potentially best generation ever does not end up playing Hungary and Japan in front of scouts' junior assistant's secretaries when it matters the most.

Is Ansons still in the mix? I have no idea how he managed to score at a 0.1 pace in the Q this year. It takes a special kind of effort to avoid the puck in a league where teams routinely score 5+ a night. His 2 PPG in Latvia are still reaaaaally impressive for a 17 year old, and on the champion team nonetheless. So maybe he turns it around in WJC and somebody decides to take a shot on this 100kg beast. Otherwise, his Canadian voyage might as well screw up his career before it even started.

Is Klaucans a legit prospect? I have no ideas how to compare those American U16 leagues, but Berzkalns at least has a guaranteed USHL spot next year. And Klaucans, well, according to eliteprospects, has a dad, who assisted Sorokins in the past. Go figure.

Klaucans was impressive in the YOG in Korea earlier this year. I think he was the 2nd best scorer behind Murnieks. So he most definitely is legit, but his prime time at this level will be next year and the year after that.

Ansons Jr. Scored 16 pts in 14 games. That's good, but not hugely impressive for an 18 year old.

Berzkalns does not have a guaranteed USHL spot next year. He can be moved to NAHL or even NCDC at any point and time.

 

[SoundAndFury]

Is Klaucans a legit prospect? I have no ideas how to compare those American U16 leagues

Triple A [partially] produced guys like Kane, Matthews, MacKinnon. So the league is very adequate. Having said that, he produced at sort of C-tier so he is only as legit as his next season.

 

[LeProspector]

Klaucans was impressive in the YOG in Korea earlier this year. I think he was the 2nd best scorer behind Murnieks. So he most definitely is legit, but his prime time at this level will be next year and the year after that.

Ansons Jr. Scored 16 pts in 14 games. That's good, but not hugely impressive for an 18 year old.

Berzkalns does not have a guaranteed USHL spot next year. He can be moved to NAHL or even NCDC at any point and time.

Berzkalns will be on the roster, if you tender a player, you’re going to use him.

Whether he sees success is another question.
.

 

[Vikz]

Klaucans was impressive in the YOG in Korea earlier this year. I think he was the 2nd best scorer behind Murnieks. So he most definitely is legit, but his prime time at this level will be next year and the year after that.

Ansons Jr. Scored 16 pts in 14 games. That's good, but not hugely impressive for an 18 year old.

Berzkalns does not have a guaranteed USHL spot next year. He can be moved to NAHL or even NCDC at any point and time.

YOG show nothing. He was playing against U15 Spaniards there, here he will be playing against guys who might sniff the NHL ice next year. The fact that he was the second best guy on a team of kids who went on a school trip does not make him legit.

Ansons had 14 pts in 7 games during the regular season. Ok, in the playoffs, he only had 4 goals in 9 games which dropped his PPG. He did it on a pro team. Macijevskis appears to be our first center. His production was worse, he is much smaller and he plays on a team of kids.

As other poster replied, USHL tender agreement guarantees a specific number of games. In a sense, Berzkalns can be safer for his spot even more than NHL players with one way contracts are. They can still be left in the stands or sent to the AHL. Berzkalns can not. Yet I get the sense that you think that earning USHL spot as a double underager is less of an achievement than scoring against 14 year olds from countries with 0 pro players.

 

[Namejs]

YOG show nothing. He was playing against U15 Spaniards there, here he will be playing against guys who might sniff the NHL ice next year. The fact that he was the second best guy on a team of kids who went on a school trip does not make him legit.

Ansons had 14 pts in 7 games during the regular season. Ok, in the playoffs, he only had 4 goals in 9 games which dropped his PPG. He did it on a pro team. Macijevskis appears to be our first center. His production was worse, he is much smaller and he plays on a team of kids.

As other poster replied, USHL tender agreement guarantees a specific number of games. In a sense, Berzkalns can be safer for his spot even more than NHL players with one way contracts are. They can still be left in the stands or sent to the AHL. Berzkalns can not. Yet I get the sense that you think that earning USHL spot as a double underager is less of an achievement than scoring against 14 year olds from countries with 0 pro players.

I love how worked up you are about this. Your points are not coherent, I don't even want to go into that. Like, scoring a little fewer points on a much weaker team means that the guy is better than a guy scoring a little more points on a much better team. Not the other way round.

Your entire take on this is very zero-sum, as if Klaucans being a legit prospect somehow makes Berzkalns a useless bum.

It doesn't. You don't have to desperately downplay Klaucans and come up with these hysterical claims of nepotism.

Just get laid or something, my dude.

If Berzkalns is legit, he will make the team next year. Ansons is probably injured.

Seriously, what's with the drama?

Berzkalns will be on the roster, if you tender a player, you’re going to use him.

Whether he sees success is another question.
.

You're right. Is the 55% rule recent or did I miss that completely?

 

[Namejs]

Here's the final roster.

Murnieks, Klaucans in

 

[SoundAndFury]

I love how worked up you are about this. Your points are not coherent,

Well, his main point is pretty sound: YOG do indeed mean nothing and I thought "kids on a school trip" was a pretty apt comparison. From afar, it's not easy to see what the Klaucans hype is about, especially next to the guys with more tangible achievements. I don't think anybody was writing him off either but there is very little to feed the hype. I can contribute by saying Logan Cooley had basically the same statistics as Klausans, however.. so have dozens of nobodies.

I will agree with the Ansons part though. He scored a myriad of points in the games where Mogo would score 10+ goals, that's not really something people will or should pay attention to, nevermind be impressed about. Combining both the regular season where he got to beat on terrible teams and the playoffs where he got to play against strong ones only makes sense when the sample size is so small and flawed. Nothing is over for him, he can still be drafted as an overager just like Veinbergs did but this season was obviously just damage control.

 

[alko]

I see that many players have a very good numbers in Latvia League (per Eliteprospects). How is that?

 

[JohnWillow]

I see that many players have a very good numbers in Latvia League (per Eliteprospects). How is that?

I have not checked it, but I have a feeling that 1/3 of the points from the season for each of those players are coming against Punks Vilnius side who were just bad.

 

[Namejs]

I see that many players have a very good numbers in Latvia League (per Eliteprospects). How is that?

The Latvian league is semi-pro. It was on par with NAHL before the arrival of Lithuanian teams and HC Panter from Estonia, which diluted the talent level somewhat.

Because of that, you expect national team-tier forward prospects to score at a near PPG rate or above at the age of 18. It's not particularly impressive at that age, as I said.

Scoring at a 1.5 to 2 PPG rate is impressive and would imply you can make the switch to minor pro leagues directly (see Zabusovs in Extraliga).
Because of the wide difference in talent between HK Mogo or Zemgale and the Lithuanian teams, you also have to take into account who did they actually score against.

There's a number of connections carried over from HS Riga, which is essentially the Latvian U18 NTDP. So chemistry-wise that's a bit of a bonus and also it kind of explains why the HS Riga kids have a lot of points (lots of PP time).

 

[Namejs]

My prediction holding up so far, but to be competely honest even I was not expecting such overall all-around quality.

The decision-making on the ice is smart. Even the kids not making the pros are not afraid of thinking about what to do with the puck and exploring their options on ice. I have never seen that at the U18 level on Team Latvia. Very few mistakes. Good transition hockey.

And here O. Sorokins and his coaching staff deserves part of the praise.

The other side of the coin is the actual talent level of our players.

The Flugins - Murnieks - Osmanis line is brilliant. Sieradzkis and Serkins have surprised.

Klaucans, the 2008 kid we talked about earlier, has been one of the standouts and he held his own today against the US and generated offense at the ripe age of 15. He is 100% legit.

We have to beat Norway now. If we do that, I bet we have a chance of making the medal round with this group of players.

 

[WarriorofTime]

It’s tough because Latvia is so small there’s only one “real” hockey academy domestically to develop players.

 

[SoundAndFury]

It’s tough because Latvia is so small there’s only one “real” hockey academy domestically to develop players.

Once again, not really sure what you have in mind. For top-end talent, there is none. For grassroots hockey, there is plenty. Not even exactly sure which one you are singling out.

 

[WarriorofTime]

Once again, not really sure what you have in mind. For top-end talent, there is none. For grassroots hockey, there is plenty. Not even exactly sure which one you are singling out.

All the best players go to Riga or outside the country by the time they hit junior age.

 

[Eye of Ra]

My prediction holding up so far, but to be competely honest even I was not expecting such overall all-around quality.

The decision-making on the ice is smart. Even the kids not making the pros are not afraid of thinking about what to do with the puck and exploring their options on ice. I have never seen that at the U18 level on Team Latvia. Very few mistakes. Good transition hockey.

And here O. Sorokins and his coaching staff deserves part of the praise.

The other side of the coin is the actual talent level of our players.

The Flugins - Murnieks - Osmanis line is brilliant. Sieradzkis and Serkins have surprised.

Klaucans, the 2008 kid we talked about earlier, has been one of the standouts and he held his own today against the US and generated offense at the ripe age of 15. He is 100% legit.

We have to beat Norway now. If we do that, I bet we have a chance of making the medal round with this group of players.

Lost to Norway. What happened?

 

[Dofs]

All the best players go to Riga or outside the country by the time they hit junior age.

Well, there is also Zemgale that right now is almost a second hockey hub. Or at least the hockey organisation is very strong there. Riga itself is one city, but there are multiple schools there.

Though more would be nice. It's a shame that Liepaja and Daugavpils kinda folded.

 

[Namejs]

Lost to Norway. What happened?

The game wasn't streamed, so obviously not sure. I did watch the post-game interview with our head coach, though.

We outshot them, yet conceded 3 goals on 8 shots in the 1st period. The goalie shat the bed, so not sure why they did not change the goalie.

The coach mentioned a series of childish mistakes. Maybe the kids got a little overconfident. As I mentioned before, there were no such plays in the previous games, so it's weird to have it happen against a weaker side.

The Latvian head coach actually told the kids in the 2nd intermission when they were down 1-5 that they need to score at least 2 unanswered goals to qualify for the QFs.

They crawled back and did exactly that. First of all, never heard of a motivational speech like that before but it clearly worked. Second, what that tells me is that they did not come to the game mentally prepared.

 

[Namejs]

All the best players go to Riga or outside the country by the time they hit junior age.

Riga and its surroundings is where most people live. There's a number of rinks and schools in the city. The Riga metro area also generates some 2/3 of the country's GDP.

A lot of kids not playing hockey go to Riga "when they hit junior age" period. You know, to get a decent uni degree and better job options.

Same works for hockey. There are regional hockey hubs all over the country. Once the kids playing in Daugavpils, Liepaja, Jelgava, Ogre, Jurmala, etc. hit a certain age, the best hockey schools usually lure them away.

There's no 'one' hockey academy.

 

[WarriorofTime]

Riga and its surroundings is where most people live. There's a number of rinks and schools in the city. The Riga metro area also generates some 2/3 of the country's GDP.

A lot of kids not playing hockey go to Riga "when they hit junior age" period. You know, to get a decent uni degree and better job options.

Same works for hockey. There are regional hockey hubs all over the country. Once the kids playing in Daugavpils, Liepaja, Jelgava, Ogre, Jurmala, etc. hit a certain age, the best hockey schools usually lure them away.

There's no 'one' hockey academy.

But HS Riga in particular, not just the city itself.

 

[Namejs]

But HS Riga in particular, not just the city itself.

No, not really.

Murnieks, who is considered a generational talent, has never been a part of HS Riga and he is entirely home-grown.

You don't need to be from Riga or move to HS Riga to become a pro hockey player or make the national team.

It's just that the HS Riga team is the effective U18 NTDP. But if you would look up the Latvian U17 league, you would immediately see how many different teams and cities are represented there.

So I literally have no idea what you're talking about.