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 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 DEL (Deutsche Eishockey League).\n', '

After playing the 1994/95 season for Krefeld Pinguine, Herberts Vasiļjevs moved to North America where he played junior and minor league hockey. He was then signed by the Florida Panthers of NHL as a free agent in 1998. Vasiļjevs was 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 the Florida Panthers, Atlanta Thrashers and Vancouver Canucks, scoring 8 goals and 7 assists. After spending the entire 2002–03 season with Vancouver Canucks\' minor league affiliate, Manitoba Moose of the AHL, Vasiļjevs was not re-signed by the Canucks.\n', '

He continued his career in the Russian Elite League 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 up until 2013.\n', '

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