Herberts Vasiļjevs

Herberts Vasiļjevs (born May 23, 1976) is a Latvian ice hockey player who plays as a center and right winger. He currently plays for Krefeld Pinguine of DEL.

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 from 1999 to 2001. He grew up in Latvia but came to Germany in early 1990s when his father became a coach for the junior team of Krefeld Pinguine of DEL (Deustche Eishockey League).

After playing the 1994/95 season for Krefeld Pinguine, Herberts Vasiļjevs moved to North America where he played junior and minor league hockey in North America. He was then signed by Florida Panthers of NHL as a free agent in 1998. Vasiļjevs is one of only three Latvian players who have reached NHL without ever being drafted in an NHL Entry Draft. (The other two were Pēteris Skudra and Raitis Ivanāns.) From 1998 to 2002, Vasiļjevs played 51 NHL games with Florida Panthers, Atlanta Thrashers and Vancouver Canucks, scoring 8 goals and 7 assists. After spending all of 2002–03 with Vancouver Canucks' minor league affiliate, Manitoba Moose of the AHL, Vasiļjevs was not resigned by Canucks. He has played professional hockey in Russian Elite League and DEL since then. Since 2005, he has been with Krefeld Pinguine, the team where he started his professional hockey career 11 years earlier. In the summer of 2010, after long negotiations, Vasiļjevs resigned a new contract with Krefeld up until 2013.