A checking line center toiling in the minors leagues is trying to stay healthy and make an impact for the Penguins
The 2024 version of our Pensburgh Top 25 Under 25 countdown list begins with a checking line forward this season.
Graduates and departed players from last year’s list
The best of the rest
#25: Raivis Ansons, LW/C
2022 Ranking: No. 16
Age: 22 (Jan. 29, 2002)
Acquired Via: 2020 NHL Draft (Round 5 – No. 149 overall)
Height/Weight: 6-foot-1, 192 pounds
After being ranked as high as 12th in the T25U25 back in 2022 (which, again were the dreariest days for talent that the Penguins have had lately), Ansons has slid down the charts with his pro career off to a mild start.
The 2023-24 season wasn’t a pleasant one for Ansons. It got off to a delayed start due to injury suffered late in 2022-23 that cost him all of training camp and the first few weeks of 2023-24. A stint in ECHL Wheeling was to follow and knock the rust off, finally earning a recall back to Wilkes-Barre on November 22nd.
From there, Ansons’ conversion to a defensive checking line center got underway at the AHL level for his second year in the Penguins’ system. The point production is limited at best, with small gasps like a one goal, one assist game against Cleveland in December.
Come for the Filly feed. Stay for the Ans goal. pic.twitter.com/8KrARIqW12
— Wilkes-Barre/Scranton Penguins (@WBSPenguins) December 9, 2023
That type of output would be the exception and not the rule, with Ansons only ending up with two goals and seven points across 34 AHL games.
Worse yet, another injury knocked him out of the lineup in December. January disappeared and it took until February for Ansons to again serve a brief ECHL stint before he could make his way back to the AHL. Ansons would be a lineup regular for the last 24 games of the regular season, even though he endured a 19-game point-less streak to end the year.
Perhaps in part due to the lack of offense, the Pens decided to leave Ansons in the press box as a scratch for both of the ever-so-brief two-game playoff series they had against Lehigh Valley.
The good news for Ansons is that his season did not end on that sour note, he was chosen to represent Latvia at the World Championships in May. It was his first appearance at that event at the senior level.
The upcoming year will be a crucial one for Ansons, it’s the third year of his three-year entry level contract. His first two seasons in Pittsburgh’s organization have unfortunately been pockmarked with injuries, but when healthy he’s been largely able to maintain a spot in the AHL lineup as a dependable, defense-first type of checking line forward, increasingly as a center. There’s value in that, but the organization also has Sam Poulin, Vasily Ponomarev in similar roles, not to mention other AHL players who are ahead of Ansons in the call up category like Jonathan Gruden and very brief cameos by Marc Johnstone and Corey Andonovski.
That makes Ansons’ future with Pittsburgh questionable. His offense has barely registered a pulse at the AHL level. While known for his defense and penalty killing, his all-around game hasn’t quite blossomed enough to be an option to at the highest level.
At the same time, and unfortunately, it’s been difficult to get a grasp on Ansons — he’s only appeared in 78 total AHL games over the course of two years (barely more than the AHL full-season total of 72). And yet, he’s set to turn 23 years this old in the middle of this upcoming season. That’s not old in any regard of life, but starting to get aged for a hockey prospect that hasn’t been able to get on track and suddenly has an expiring contract for a management group that did not draft him.
That makes the upcoming year a huge one for Ansons. Ideally he stays healthy and shows himself as an excellent AHL option off-puck as a defensive shutdown specialist. This type of development would put him on the radar to get the type of deep emergency call-up that saw Johnstone get a game in the show last year. It’s becoming urgent for Ansons if he wants to stick to stay healthy and put himself in position to make a move here in year three, else he might not get a chance to do so in the Pens’ organization.