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Sabres' Zemgus Girgensons more than just Latvian 'rock star'

Kevin Allen
USA TODAY Sports
Buffalo Sabres center Zemgus Girgensons has 17 points this season.

Denver University coach Jim Montgomery isn't surprised that Lativian fans are stuffing the NHL All-Star ballot box for Zemgus Girgensons because he fully understands who Girgensons is and who he can be.

"He's going to be the best Latvian to ever play the game," said Montgomery, who coached Girgensons for the Dubuque Fighting Saints in the United States Hockey League from 2010-12.

For the third consecutive week, Buffalo Sabres center Girgensons is the top vote-getter in the All-Star voting.

With 1,089,865 votes, Girgensons is more than a half-million votes ahead of Chicago Blackhawks teammates Patrick Kane, Jonathan Toews, Duncan Keith and Corey Crawford, who hold down the next four places.

"(Girgensons) leading is quite a story, but I have to believe he's a rock star over in his country," said Sabres general manager Tim Murray.

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According to the NHL press release, 80% of Girgensons' vote total has come from Latvians and his Buffalo fans.

Latvia is a country with a population of just under 2 million, but the country's passion for hockey is evident at international hockey events. Fans lead tournaments in enthusiasm.

"We all saw how proud Latvians were of (former NHL star) Sandis Ozolinsh," Montgomery said. "And then combine their pride with Zemgus' personality. He is really magnetic. Everyone loves being around him. For a player who was a star at 16 and a captain at 17, there was not one bit of jealousy because of how hard he works. He connects with everybody."

In his second season, Girgensons is the Sabres' leading goal scorer with nine and one of the team's most consistent players. He has 17 points.

"He has gone beyond expectations for me," Murray said. "He is 20, and he is centering our first line. I don't know if people know, but he's a heckuva a hockey player."

Girgensons is 190 pounds of relentlessness. "At 20, he's already a pro's pro," Murray said.

Even when he was 14, Girgensons had drive. He saw an American team from Vermont that played well at a tournament in Sweden and wrote the coach and asked for a tryout. He ended up joining the Green Mountain Glades the following season.

"We didn't get NHL games in Latvia, but I would go online when I was a kid and check out what was going on," Girgensons said.

It didn't take long for him to end up in the United States Hockey League and on the NHL's radar.

"His work ethic is the best I've seen outside of Rod Brind'Amour," Montgomery said.

Brind'Amour, now an assistant coach with the Carolina Hurricanes, had legendary training habits during a NHL career that lasted from 1988-89 to 2009-10.

During his draft year, there was considerable debate in the scouting community about whether Girgensons would ever be a scorer at the NHL level.

"What I said was, 'Well if he is a third-line player, then you are going to win four Stanley Cups in a row," Montgomery said. "His offensive game will evolve as his game matures."

Montgomery always made his players fill out a goal sheet before the season and Girgensons always wrote that he would never "give up" or be "outworked."

"And it's true," Montgomery said. "I saw him score a hat trick on a high-ankle sprain. When we won a championship, he was 16 and on the first shift of the game, his line started, and the way he skated, I said, 'Oh, we are winning tonight.'"

He plays the same way in the NHL as he did in the USHL.

"He has qualities that great leaders have," Montgomery said. "He's going to wear the 'C' within a couple of years in Buffalo."

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