Jacques Plante (1952-1975)

Masks have always been the source of great art for hockey goaltenders and some really beautiful masks have seen the day.  It’s not an easy thing to select out of the plethora of gorgeous masks out there, but I’ll list some of my favourites here and in the process, list some of the best Montreal Canadian masks as well.

Montreal Canadian Masks

Patrick Roy arguably had the most effective mask ever!  That’s right, you think its simple enough, but that’s the beauty of it.  That logo is so visible, it’s amazing.

Though it wasn’t always like this.  His first mask, when he entered was even simpler.

Nowadays, our goaltenders have finally got on with the painting trend.  Here are our current goaltender masks:

Jaroslav Halak

Carey Price

Jaroslav Halak

Another Halak mask -- seems like he got quite a few there!

Carey Price -- another mask

Carey Price - alternative view

And some older masks from the Canadians:

Ken Dryden

Cristobal Huet

Other NHL Goaltenders

Lets move on to other goaltender masks.  I have selected some of the few that I found were the most amazing.  In no particular order of preference, here they are:

Gary Cheevers, the guy who started it all

Gary Cheevers, another picture of his awesome stiched up mask

Gilles Gratton -- one of the most awesome masks ever!

Another Picture of Gratton's mask

Gary Bromley --- awesome!!

Eddie Belfour

Eddie Belfour

Marty Turco

Marc Andre Fleury

Manny Fernandez

Curtis Sanford

Cujo (Curtis Joseph)

Another view of Cujo's sweet mask

Brian Hayward

Trevor Kidd

John Vanbiesbrouck -- nice isn't it?

Yann Denis -- He got the devil thing going!

Tukka Rask -- definitely needs an honorable mention

Nikolai Khabibulin

Cristobal Huet

Craig Anderson -- that's a nice mask!

Top 5 Masks

According to me… (it’s subjective guys, don’t tell me I got it wrong!) the top 5 masks are as follows:

5.  Gary Bromley
4.  Gilles Gratton
3.  Manny Fernandez
2.  Curtis Joseph
1.  Brian Hayward

Ok, dont’ flame me, it’s just my opinion. Hayward’s Shark mask looks AWESOME! He captured the essence of a shark in there.   All the other masks I posted up there are all my favourite one and it was really hard to select the number 1 mask out of all these and select the ones above from all the awesome masks out there, but Hayward’s mask rocks and I love Trevor Kidds mask even though it doesn’t come in my top 5.

Got any mask you wish to show, post the link in comments!