2014 Vezina Candidates

The Vezina Candidates for the 2013-14 season were announced today:

Tuukka Rask of the Boston Bruins, Ben Bishop of the Tampa Bay Lightning, and Semyon Varlamov of the Colorado Avalanche.

Joacim Eriksson 2013-14 Mask

Joacim Eriksson of the Vancouver Canucks (born April 9, 1990 in Gavle, Sweden.)

Eriksson appeared in the January 15, 2014 game.

Artist: David Gunnarsson

From The Goalie Guild's PadsTracker 

Drew MacIntyre 2013-14 Mask

Drew MacIntyre of the Toronto Maple Leafs (born June 24, 1983 in Charlottetown, PE.)

MacIntyre played in two games, one in March and the other in April.)

You can barely see this in the above photo, but he has 3 cartoon characters on his backplate. Here is a screen capture from the Bleacher Report.

And we're told on this blog, that the characters are Cheer Bear, Roo from Winnie the Pooh, and Pinkie Pie from My Little Pony. 

From The Goalie Guild's PadsTracker

Cedrick Desjardins 2013-14 Mask

Cedrick Desjardins of the Tampa Bay Lightning (born Sept. 30, 1985 in Edmundston, NB.)

Desjardins made an appearance in the Feb. 6, 2014 game.

From The Goalie Guild's PadsTracker

Cal Heeter 2013-14 Mask

Cal Heeter of the Philadelphia Flyers (born Nov 2, 1988 in St. Louis, MO.)

NHL.com doesn't have a page for him yet. He made his NHL debut on April 13, 2014.

I don't have any information about his mask, except that his back plate is a tribute to a relative who is in the military (field artillery.)

From The Goalie Guild's PadsTracker

Andrew Hammond 2013-14 Mask

Andrew Hammond of the Ottawa Senators (born on Feb 11, 1988 in White Rock, BC.)

Hammond made a relief appearance on Feb 27, 2014 and played 34:31 minutes.

I don't have any information about this mask, but is that the Hamburglar on the left side?

From The Goalie Guild's PadsTracker

Nathan Lawson 2013-14 Mask

Nathan Lawson of the Ottawa Senators (born Sept. 29, 1983 in Calgary, AB.)

On March 18, 2014 Lehner started the game, but Lawson came in net at the beginning of the 3rd period. He then had to leave the game after 11:52 minutes due to injury.

I don't have any information on Lawson's mask. (Scott mentioned in a comment below that he thought he remembered Lawson saying the angel was in honor of his wife or family, and that does sound slightly familiar. I might need to look up that Montreal mask and see if I can find more.)

I looked back at Lawson's 2011-12 Montreal mask, and a reader said "The depictions are of his family, and the top illustration is of him being the Guardian." It could be a similar theme with this mask, but I can't say for sure.

The pads above are slightly different from the ones below. The above photo was taken in Nov 2013. I didn't find a photo the March 2014 game, so I don't know if he switched to the pads below.

From The Goalie Guild's PadsTracker

Magnus Hellberg 2013-14 Mask

Magnus Hellberg of the Nashville Predators (born on April 4, 1991 in Uppsala, Sweden.)

Hellberg played 12:12 minutes of relief in the October 26, 2013 game.

Artist: David Gunnarsson

From The Goalie Guild's PadsTracker

Dustin Tokarski 2013-14 Mask

Duston Tokarski of the Montreal Canadiens (born Sept 16, 1989 in Humboldt, SK.)

Tokarski started 3 games in March 2014 (one of those being a shutout against Buffalo.)

Tokarski's nickname is Tic, so he goes with The Tick on his masks.

Artist: David Arrigo

The parameters for the mask were simple: maintain The Tick imagery and use a simple clean design.  The overall theme is retro, the minimal use of colour gives it a throwback feel to the earliest styles of goalie masks.

For imagery, on one side are the various logos that have been worn by the historic Montreal Canadiens franchise.  On the other side, is the funniest superhero ever, The Tick.  For this graphic The Tick is breaking through the helmet ready with his Habs power ring, ready to “Goalkeep safely!”

From The Goalie Guild's PadsTracker

Richard Bachman 2013-14 Mask

Richard Bachman of the Edmonton Oilers (born July 25, 1987 in Salt Lake City, UT.)

Bachman started 3 games for Edmonton in late October/early November.

Artist: David Gunnarsson

The old school oil pump is just like the pumps in the movie "There will be blood" you know, and it´s a very hard working pump because it´s splashing out oil all over. In the background a nice sky with glittering stars, and more hard working oil pumps.

From The Goalie Guild's PadsTracker