Latvia: Latvian prospects

[DrStrangelife]

Girgensons with his first Assist in AHL in a game against B-Sens (16/10/2012) which they unfortunately lost. (1:3)

 

[Justinov]

What line did he play?

I'm not sure but I guess he must be playing second line with Nicklas Jensen, because he had his second match with the 5-1 AIK win over Brynäs, where both N. Jensen and Klavins surprisingly were pointless. (AIK homepage doesn't give the playing lines).

He is called up since AIK have a lot of injuries.

 

[Latgale_fan]

Rihards Bukarts just scored his 3 goal in 3 games,glad to see him back

and what's even more interesting is that his line, with Begovs and Siksnis, has outscored the 1st line Upīts-Lipsbergs-Jelisejevs in the last few games and he is now trailing only 2 points to Upītis in scorer's table.

Considering that first line consists of two 1991 borns with KHL experience (and Upītis also with some KHL goals) and Jeļisējevs who's a good 1994 prospect and last year was on the same line with WHL's Lipsbergs and QMJHL's Jevpalovs.... and Bukarts line consists of 93 born average Latvian hockey Joes Begovs and Siksnis- pretty impressive feat.

Egle (1996) in EJHL Portland Pirates 10 games 6+3 though his team is very bad but still, for such a poor team to be almost point per game scorer at the age of 16 is pretty good

 

[BPilgrim]

I'm not sure but I guess he must be playing second line with Nicklas Jensen, because he had his second match with the 5-1 AIK win over Brynäs, where both N. Jensen and Klavins surprisingly were pointless. (AIK homepage doesn't give the playing lines).

He is called up since AIK have a lot of injuries.

You can see line ups on swehockey by clicking on the result and then line up: http://stats.swehockey.se/ScheduleAndResults/Schedule/2892

Klavins played with Christian Sandberg and Nicklas Jensen.

 

[Justinov]

You can see line ups on swehockey by clicking on the result and then line up: http://stats.swehockey.se/ScheduleAndResults/Schedule/2892

Klavins played with Christian Sandberg and Nicklas Jensen.

Thank you for the information. It was as I suspected. That's not a bad line to be in for a SEL debut!

 

[Latgale_fan]

Kļaviņš picked up his first goal for AIK, also playing over 11 minutes. Zemgus with an assist in the AHL tonight, Lipsbergs with a goal in WHL and Jevpalovs with an assist in the QMJHL
Seems that as regards offense this year will see BY FAR the best U20 team for Latvia:

Edgars Kļaviņš 1993 Elitserien 5 games 1+1
Zemgus Girgensons 1994 AHL 7 games 0+2
Teodors Bļugers 1994 NCAA 5 games 1+2
Nikita Jevpalovs 1994 QMJHL 15 games 4+6
Roberts Lipsbergs 1994 WHL 11 games 1+4
Edgars Kulda 1994 WHL 13 games 1+4
Artūrs Kuzmenkovs 1993 Belarus 13 games 6+10
Rihards Bukarts MHL 1995 24 games 7+10
Kārlis Ozoliņš 1994 Belarus 14 games 3+6
Toms Andersons 1993 Swiss U20 14 games 8+11
Artjoms Dašutins 1993 MHL 19 games 7+6
Andris Siksnis 1993 MHL 19 games 4+8

Already 12 guys, playing at solid leagues and being leaders there or at very high level (AHL, Elitserien) for U20.
To continue the list:

Nikolajs Jeļisējevs 1994 MHL 24 games 8+5
Rustams Begovs 1993 MHL 24 games 7+3
Edgars Homjakovs 1995 MHL B 12 games 7+8
Georgs Golovkovs 1995 MHL 24 games 4+4
Juris Zandovskis 1993 NLA 1 game 0+0
Romāns Semjonovs 1994 Division 1 (SWE) 13 games 5+2
Zintis N Zuševics 1994 EBEL 15 games 0+1

Of course there are others closer or further from the team and maybe I missed somebody but if all the guys are well, as regards offense we'll have a fighting team

 

[BalticWarrior]

Bukarts,Kuzmenkovs and Jeilisejevs had very good u-20 pre championship tournament Bukarts(2+2) kuzmenkovs (0+6) Jelisejevs ( 4+2) hope these guys will be just as good at WJC`s

 

[smitty10]

Latvia could surprise this year. Their development system is improving and there are a lot of kids playing in top leagues. Can't wait to see what Girgensons, Bluegers and the other top guys can do at the WJC. Wouldn't be surprised if they finished ahead of Germany and Switzerland.

 

[BalticWarrior]

Latvia could surprise this year. Their development system is improving and there are a lot of kids playing in top leagues. Can't wait to see what Girgensons, Bluegers and the other top guys can do at the WJC. Wouldn't be surprised if they finished ahead of Germany and Switzerland.

Watch out for Rihards Bukarts in WJC`s,he should open eyes to alot of NA fans and scouts.

 

[GX]

Just take a look at the list Latgale_fan made. Almost all of the guys are 1994-born, as well as goalie Elvis Merzlikins is (I hope that he will be the starting goalie, not Cimermanis). I agree that this year's potential roster is the most impressive one in a long time, making the 2014 WJC even more hopeful.

Btw, 1992-borns were even worse than I thought - there were so many 1993 guys in WJC last year, yet this year most of them are nowhere near the team. That says a lot about how different 1992's and 1994's are.

 

[BalticWarrior]

Was browsing some info about one of our 2014 draft prospects Davis Zembergs and it looks like he plays in NA right in EJEPL anyone know anyhting about that league?

 

[BalticWarrior]

So it looks like EJEPL is kind of a farm league to EJHL so he wiil try to get into EJHL and maybe go the girgensons path ejhl->ushl

 

[VictorLustig]

Watched AIK yesterday and I was super-impressed by Klavins. He was put on the first line and they were dangerous every shift. Great hands and size, I think he has good chances of being drafted this summer.

 

[BalticWarrior]

Watched AIK yesterday and I was super-impressed by Klavins. He was put on the first line and they were dangerous every shift. Great hands and size, I think he has good chances of being drafted this summer.

In order for him to get drafted he is going to have to shine in wjc`s for team Latvia.

 

[BalticWarrior]

Bukarts and Golovkovs both (0+1) in the last game

 

[BalticWarrior]

Lipsbergs absolutley phenomenal last night scoring a hat-trick.Keep it up, Robert!

 

[BalticWarrior]

Rihards Bukarts scored the only goal for his team and thats his 10th of the season

 

[BalticWarrior]

Lipsbergs and Jevpalovs both with a goal.

 

[BalticWarrior]

Lipsbergs continues to light up the whl. yesterday scored his 16th of the season.

 

[v-man]

And Lipsbergs adds another goal and assist before heading off to the World Jrs. Still the top rookie in the WHL by 4 points.

 

[BalticWarrior]

Girgensons with an assist against the marlies yesterday.

 

[BalticWarrior]

Looking at our 98 borns Treijs and Balcers,they could turn out to be very good players,especially Treijs whos ripping up the swedish u-16 beeing only 14 himself.

 

[DrStrangelife]

Girgensons with a goal (his 3rd) in the victory (5:2) vs @ Abbotsford Heat (4th Jan 2013).

 

[wings5]

Going a bit off topic here but I noticed that many of the Latvian players share a striking resemblance to scandinavians ex. Blueger, Dzerins while others resemble eastern europeans slavs . My understanding was that people from these country as well as the other baltic nations have both Scandinavian ancestry as well as Slavic, is this correct? Forgive me I didn't know where else to ask and wanted an answer from a true Latvian.

 

[ozo]

Going a bit off topic here but I noticed that many of the Latvian players share a striking resemblance to scandinavians ex. Blueger, Dzerins while others resemble eastern europeans slavs . My understanding was that people from these country as well as the other baltic nations have both Scandinavian ancestry as well as Slavic, is this correct? Forgive me I didn't know where else to ask and wanted an answer from a true Latvian.

I can somewhat imagine where you are coming from, but you sure do picked poor (to put it mildly) examples for Scandinavian influence. Blueger, actually is a nickname, and Džeriņš is as Latvian as it gets. Girgensons is a rare one, but it has that striking ending of an Scandinavian last name (but we have thousands of people named Jansons, Pētersons, etc. That said we probably don't even have 5% Scandinavian in average Latvian (unless you count some Finnish blood Scandinavian as well), Sweden simply was relevant in what know is day modern Latvia/Estonia a couple of centuries back when rulers of the land thought it would be nice to invent official last names here as well. Lots of Germanic, not Scandinavian last names in general here.

Our ties with Slavic world are much more tighter and we can surely speak about some serious ancestry, yet we are still nothing like Slavs. When it comes to modern days we can still fairly easily spot who is a Latvian and who is a Slavic person although lately the borders are becoming blurry and you can never be sure where Latvian ends and Russian speaking person starts, see Oļegs Sorokins (more Latvian than probably I am ) and then there's Artūrs Kulda, who doesn't give interviews in Latvian at all.

This last paragraph is a touchy one even 20 years after we regained our independence, but you can be sure that we'll cheer Ņikita Jevpalovs' goals just as loud as Roberts Lipsbergs' (hey again Scandinavian?) ones as long as they both sport that sexy Latvian maroon.