Police release new details on the passing of goaltender Matiss Kivlenieks.

On Monday morning we all woke up to the shocking news surrounding young goaltender Matiss Kivlenieks. Initial reports began to come out of Latvia, Kivlenieks home country, that suggested the goaltender had died but considering that he was healthy and had been spotted out and about just days prior it seemed somewhat hard to believe.

The Columbus Blue Jackets organization would however go on to confirm that Kivlenieks had indeed shockingly passed away at the age of just 24, also revealing that he had died as a result of a head injury suffered at some point over the weekend. Now however new details have emerged from law enforcement that show what a truly senseless loss of life this entire scenario has been, and quite frankly it has left me feeling like this is an even bigger tragedy than before.

Columbus Blue Jackets insider Aaron Portzline has reached out to law enforcement where the incident happened, the city of Novi, Michigan, and has learned that Kivlenieks suffered the head injuring while he was "fleeing a hot tub" on the fourth of July. The Blue Jackets goaltender was reportedly doing so, along with several other people, because of a "fireworks malfunction" that had occurred. Novi police Lt. Jason Meier provided a comment that effectively confirmed this was just some tragic and terrible accident.

"The deceased, while exiting the hot tub, slipped and fell and hit his head on the concrete," said Meier as per The Athletic.

The story is made all the more tragic given how amazing Kivlenieks' personal journey to even get to the National Hockey League had been leading up to this moment. The Latvian came to North America at just 17 years old to play low level junior hockey and gradually worked his way up through the NAHL and the USHL before turning pro. He then continued to work his way through the ranks of the ECHL and the American Hockey League before finally getting the chance to play in the NHL, appearing in 8 games for the Blue Jackets over the last two seasons.

Just a truly senseless loss of life and I can't imagine what the Kivlenieks family is going through right now, but our thoughts are with them at this time.