Herberts Vasiļjevs (born 27 May 1976) is a retired

Latvia Latvia ( or ; lv, Latvija ; ltg, Latveja; liv, Leţmō), officially the Republic of Latvia ( lv, Latvijas Republika, links=no, ltg, Latvejas Republika, links=no, liv, Leţmō Vabāmō, links=no), is a country in the Baltic region of ...

n professional

ice hockey Ice hockey (or simply hockey) is a team sport played on ice skates, usually on an ice skating rink with lines and markings specific to the sport. It belongs to a family of sports called hockey. In ice hockey, two opposing teams use ice hock ...

center Center or centre may refer to: Mathematics *Center (geometry), the middle of an object * Center (algebra), used in various contexts ** Center (group theory) ** Center (ring theory) * Graph center, the set of all vertices of minimum eccentrici ...

and

right winger A midfielder is an outfield position in association football. Midfielders may play an exclusively defensive role, breaking up attacks, and are in that case known as defensive midfielders. As central midfielders often go across boundarie ...

. He played in 51

NHL The National Hockey League (NHL; french: Ligue nationale de hockey—LNH, ) is a professional ice hockey league in North America comprising 32 teams—25 in the United States and 7 in Canada. It is considered to be the top ranked professional ...

contests and spent more than ten years in the German

DEL Del, or nabla, is an operator used in mathematics (particularly in vector calculus) as a vector differential operator, usually represented by the nabla symbol ∇. When applied to a function defined on a one-dimensional domain, it denotes th ...

with

Krefeld Pinguine The Krefeld Pinguine (Krefeld Penguins) are an ice hockey team in the DEL2. Their home ice is in Krefeld, North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany at the König Palast. Founded first in 1936 by Willi Münstermann, the pro team became a limited liability ...

. He also represented the Latvian national teams at three

Olympic Games The modern Olympic Games or Olympics (french: link=no, Jeux olympiques) are the leading international sporting events featuring summer and winter sports competitions in which thousands of athletes from around the world participate in a var ...

Playing career

Herberts Vasiļjevs is a son of Haralds Vasiļjevs, a well-known Latvian ice hockey player and coach, who coached the

Latvian national ice hockey team The Latvian men's national ice hockey team represents Latvia in international ice hockey. The team is ranked 10th in the world by IIHF as of 2019. The team is controlled by the Latvian Ice Hockey Federation. Their best ever finish at the World Ch ...

from 1999 to 2001. He grew up in Latvia, but came to Germany in the early 1990s when his father accepted the player-coach position of the senior team at ERC Westfalen 90 Dortmund. Herberts played in the junior team of Dortmund. His father later moved on to coach the junior team of Krefeld Pinguine of the German

(Deutsche Eishockey League). After playing the 1994/95 season for Krefeld Pinguine, Herberts Vasiļjevs moved to North America where he played junior and

minor league Minor leagues are professional sports leagues which are not regarded as the premier leagues in those sports. Minor league teams tend to play in smaller, less elaborate venues, often competing in smaller cities/markets. This term is used in Nor ...

hockey. He was then signed by the

Florida Panthers The Florida Panthers are a professional ice hockey team based in the Miami metropolitan area. They compete in the National Hockey League (NHL) as a member of the Atlantic Division (NHL), Atlantic Division in the Eastern Conference (NHL), Eastern ...

as a free agent in 1998. Vasiļjevs was one of three Latvian players who have reached NHL without ever being drafted in an NHL Entry Draft (the other two were

Pēteris Skudra Pēteris "Peter" Skudra (born April 24, 1973) is a Latvian former professional ice hockey goaltender and head coach. During a playing career that lasted from 1994 to 2007 he played for several teams in Latvia, Russia and North America. After sta ...

and

Raitis Ivanāns Raitis Ivanāns (born January 3, 1979) is a Latvian former professional ice hockey forward (ice hockey), forward who played in the National Hockey League (NHL) and was known primarily as an enforcer (ice hockey), enforcer. Playing career In 199 ...

). From 1998 to 2002, Vasiļjevs played 51 NHL games with the Florida Panthers,

Atlanta Thrashers The Atlanta Thrashers were a professional ice hockey team based in Atlanta. Atlanta was granted a franchise in the National Hockey League (NHL) on June 25, 1997, and became the League's 28th franchise when it began play in the 1999–2000 seaso ...

and

Vancouver Canucks The Vancouver Canucks are a professional ice hockey team based in Vancouver. They compete in the National Hockey League (NHL) as a member of the Pacific Division of the Western Conference, and play their home games at Rogers Arena. Bruce B ...

, scoring 8 goals and 7 assists. After spending the entire 2002–03 season with Vancouver Canucks' minor league affiliate,

Manitoba Moose The Manitoba Moose are a professional ice hockey team based in Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada, and a member of the American Hockey League (AHL). The team plays its home games at Canada Life Centre, the home arena of its parent club, Winnipeg Jets o ...

of the AHL, Vasiļjevs was not re-signed by the Canucks. He continued his career in the

Russian Superleague The Russian Superleague (russian: Чемпионат России Суперлига, ''Russian Championship Superleague''), commonly abbreviated as RSL, was the highest division of the main professional ice hockey league in Russia. It was consi ...

and the DEL. In 2005, he returned to the Krefeld Pinguine organization, the team where he started his professional hockey career 11 years earlier. In the summer of 2010, after long negotiations, Vasiļjevs re-signed a new contract with

Krefeld Krefeld ( , ; li, Krieëvel ), also spelled Crefeld until 1925 (though the spelling was still being used in British papers throughout the Second World War), is a city in North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany. It is located northwest of Düsseldorf, i ...

up until 2013. On 21 May 2015 Vasiljevs consolidated his status amongst Krefeld's history in agreeing to a one-year extension to return for an 11th season with the Pinguine. He announced his retirement on 26 February 2017.

Career statistics

Regular season and playoffs

International

References

External links

* * * * {{DEFAULTSORT:Vasiljevs, Heberts 1976 births Living people Amur Khabarovsk players Atlanta Thrashers players Beast of New Haven players Carolina Monarchs players Latvian expatriate ice hockey players in Russia Florida Panthers players Guelph Storm players Ice hockey players at the 2006 Winter Olympics Ice hockey players at the 2010 Winter Olympics Ice hockey players at the 2014 Winter Olympics Kentucky Thoroughblades players Krefeld Pinguine players Knoxville Cherokees players Latvian ice hockey right wingers Manitoba Moose players Nürnberg Ice Tigers players Olympic ice hockey players for Latvia Orlando Solar Bears (IHL) players Port Huron Border Cats players Ice hockey people from Riga Undrafted National Hockey League players Vancouver Canucks players