BalticWarrior
Registered User
A few notes on the Latvia analysis.
Several of the players named are probably not going to be playing for the national team at all. For example, Komuls is 20 and playing in NAHL. Usually that's not a recipe for a successful pro career. Unless he's going to be a late bloomer in the NCAA, I don't see him being near the national team.
The same thing to a lesser extent applies to E. Kulda, Lipsbergs and a couple of others. So far they have failed to make the switch to pro hockey. Lipsbergs was a 0.40 PPG guy in the ECHL. If he was a tall power forward, he could be playing on the 4th line if we're missing several of our leading forwards.
Ponomarenko has fizzled out.
You've also ommitted some young prospects like Smirnovs, Koppass, Smons, Egle brothers. I don't remember seeing the names of Kalnins, Punnenovs, Kivlenieks, Mitens, Grigals. That's a lot of good goalies.
Another thing to note is that Latvians are generally late bloomers when it comes to physical development. There's a couple of reasons for that. We mature slower than most Europeans. It's a genetic thing. It sounds weird, but it's true. Sub-Saharan Africans reach puberty and their peak faster, Europeans develop a little bit later and East Asians are late bloomers. We're closer to East Asians than Europeans. That's an important little thing to note when analyzing U18, U20 prospects. The other big factor is not spending enough time in the gym in their teens. Our players usually bulk up later. So it's harder to judge Latvian prospects at an early age.
Overall, I see an increase in depth in all positions and no changes in the amount of elite talent. But I do believe the number of Latvian players in the NHL will be >1 in 4 years.
Upd.: There's also the peculiar case of Edgars Treijs. He's probably going to be a solid SHL forward and we might want to poach him back to the other side of the Baltic. He's a Latvian guy who tried having a go at making the Swedish junior national teams, but failed. I'm not sure about his eligibility, but he might join the KHL and Dinamo Riga eventually.
Your genetic knowledge is lacking. Genetically speaking we have nothing to do with East Asians, like we are very far apart if you use things like SNP clustering to determine genetic clusters/similiarities between ethnic groups. Your claim that Latvians mature later physically than other Europeans has no basis in scientific evidence.