With NHL All-Star balloting now open, Buffalo Sabres center Zemgus Girgensons has a message for the fans in his native Latvia: Don’t vote for me again.
In a tweet Girgensons posted in Latvian today, he wrote, according to Google Translate, “All due respect to the fans, but please (do) not … vote for me (for) this (year’s All-Star Game)! Such things must be earned!”
Girgensons, 21, has only two goals and four points in 21 games this season.
A year ago, buoyed by rabid support by Latvian fans, Girgensons received an NHL-high 1,574,896 votes and earned a spot in the NHL All-Star Game.
The attention Girgensons received then embarrassed him. He usually downplayed the voting. Still, Girgensons, who scored 15 goals in 61 games in 2014-15, was one of the Sabres’ best players. His place in the game didn’t seem overly outrageous.
This season, however, he has struggled, and he clearly doesn’t want to deal with the distraction again.
Visu cieņu faniem, bet lūdzu šogad nebalsot par mani zvaigžņu spēlē! Šādas lietas ir jānopelna!
— Zemgus Girgensons (@zemgus94) December 2, 2015