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Vegas goalie Oscar Dansk's new mask honours shooting victims

Stan Temming
Vegas Golden Knights goalie Oscar Dansk (left) has made a touching upgrade to his helmet for the upcoming season. (AP Photo/Jack Dempsey)
Vegas Golden Knights goalie Oscar Dansk (left) has made a touching upgrade to his helmet for the upcoming season. (AP Photo/Jack Dempsey)

Before the Vegas Golden Knights even began their first season as an NHL club, the city that they represent was rocked by tragedy. On Oct. 1, 2017, five days before the Golden Knights began their inaugural season, a lone gunman opened fire at a large group of concertgoers.

By the time his final bullet was shot, the gunman had taken the lives of 58 innocent individuals.

Vegas did all that they could throughout the year to help its city heal. Most notably, the organization retired the No. 58 before their final regular-season home game to commemorate the lives lost.

Golden Knights netminder Oscar Dansk, however, wanted to do more. He decided to do something personally to ensure that we never forget, and the result is an artistic masterpiece.

Today we have the honor to present Oscar Dansk’s new Vegas Golden Knights mask⚔️. Oscar had a beautiful idea for his new mask, he wanted the mask to be painted as a tribute to all the victims at last years attack in Las Vegas❤️. A Vegas Golden Knight helmet is created on the mask for each and every of the 58 victims🙏🏻. All helmets are placed on the top of the mask, closest to heaven. All the Vegas helmets are created as a part of the design, and the main design is created in a classic way built on the awesome Vegas logos⚔️. And of course the Vegas Strong logo is also a part of the design. Just as usual I really love to work with the details. Thanks Oscar, it was a true honor to create this painting for you.🙏🏻❤️😊 @oscardansk @vegasgoldenknights @nhl @daveart #nhl

A post shared by David Gunnarsson (@daveart) on Aug 29, 2018 at 10:46am PDT

The man responsible for this work, David Gunnarsson, has been designing masks for years. He’s also done work for Henrik Lundqvist, Frederik Anderson, Jacob Markstrom, Cam Talbot and Carey Price.

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Based on Gunnarsson’s explanation of the concept in his Instagram post, it’s clear that a lot of thought and meaning was put into this helmet.

Hopefully, Dansk will have the opportunity to wear it a few times at the NHL level in the near future –the 24-year-old played in four games last season when the Golden Knights’ crease was mercilessly attacked by the injury bug.

He posted an impressive 1.78 GAA and .946 SV% to go along with a 3-0-0 record before he had to go on the shelf himself after tweaking his leg in a contest against the New York Islanders on Oct. 30.

Going into the 2018-19 campaign, Dansk is expected to be the squad’s third-string goaltender behind Marc-Andre Fleury and Malcolm Subban.

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