Colorado Avalanche Goalie Philipp Grubauer with a New Mask

Colorado Avalanche goalie Philipp Grubauer went with a traditionally-styled mask painting for his start with his new team.

Colorado Avalanche goalie Philipp Grubauer has released his new mask. Goalies don’t always get a new mask every year. However, when you switch teams as Grubauer did — coming from the Washington Capitals — you obviously need new paint on your mask.

I love goalie mask reveals. Goalies are the only players who get to show a bit of flair on the ice with their choice in mask paint jobs. We get a sense for who the goalie is as a person, or at least what his artistic taste is like.

For example, last season Avalanche backup goalie Jonathan Bernier incorporated some thematic images in his mask design:

The lion on top is something he’s included in all his masks because he’s a Leo — he even has a lion tattooed onto his shoulder.

Philipp Grubauer’s mask doesn’t look quite so personalized. However, it’s still a very handsome mask. Here’s video showing the whole mask:

Here are different angles of the mask in photograph form.

According to the post, Grubauer has been working with the Swedish artist, David Gunnarsson for many years. In fact, this Avalanche mask appears to be the 11th he’s commissioned from Gunnarsson.

Of course, as the post points out, the Rocky Mountains were a big inspiration for this mask, as were the team jerseys. It has a lot of stark red and blue with the silver as bold detaining. I think the hashmark Avs logo looks cool.

And the chin guard puts paid to whether we’ll be chanting “Grubi” or “Gruuuub.” Minnesota Wild fans chant “Duuuuub” for their goalie, Devan Dubnyk, and some Avs fans were worried they might have to sound like sick cows, too, when chanting for their goalie. Luckily, Grubi has shown us the way.

I’m not sure what “The Desolation of Grubi” means, though. It sounds like a melancholy German thing.

I’m sure we’ll get to see Philipp Grubauer’s mask in its full glory at some point in the preseason. He and Semyon Varlamov are going to be in a battle for which goalie will earn the opening spot.