Philipp Grubauer already knows all of this. The weeks and months in the tunnel. The weeks and months when there is almost nothing in his life except ice hockey. Plane, hotel, training, meeting, game – every two or three days from the beginning. The North American NHL play-offs can be brutal. Physically and above all mentally. Especially for goalkeepers like Grubauer. He can do everything right for a whole game, keep his view clear despite the hustle and bustle in his goal area, the pucks fishing up to 160 kilometers per hour out of the air. But if he makes just one mistake in the end, it can be over. With his team’s master dreams. Or at least for him and his role.
Grubauer has already experienced this. 2018 with the Washington Capitals. At the beginning of the play-offs, the capital club surprisingly relied on the actual substitute from Rosenheim. But one and a half games and eight goals conceded later he was back outside. Regular goalkeeper Braden Holtby returned to goal and led the Capitals to the championship. So also Grubauer, who became the first German goalkeeper whose name was immortalized at the Stanley Cup. A few weeks later he brought the most important trophy of world ice hockey to his homeland, where a stage was set up. The German national goalkeeper presented the cup to the fans in Rosenheim in lederhosen.
Grubauer’s chances of becoming champion again this year are not that bad. While the German superstar Leon Draisaitl – top scorer and contender for individual prizes – was eliminated from the qualification with the Edmonton Oilers, Grubauer is still in the middle of it. He and his Colorado Avalanche didn’t need the extra round. They only had to play three placement games, as they qualified directly for the play-offs in the main round. The start for the Denver team this Wednesday (11:30 p.m. CEST) with the first game of the round of 16 against the Arizona Coyotes.
People don’t travel around as usual. Because of the pandemic, the NHL has shipped all teams to two cities, where they play isolated from the public. Grubauer’s Avalanche play in Edmonton, Canada. And although the league offers all kinds of leisure activities there such as bars, restaurants, sports fields or a cinema, a camp fever can quickly arise. But Grubauer does not want to deal with that. “We’re not there for fun,” the 28-year-old told the sports information service. He only has one goal: “We’re hot for the cup and want this thing.”
Whether that works will also depend on Grubauer himself. Because at the beginning of the current season he was finally there, finally the clear number one in a team from the strongest ice hockey league in the world. He never was in Washington, and even at the beginning in Denver he had to share the job in the gate with the Russian Semyon Varlamov. But his contract was not extended in the summer, Grubauer seemed to be the man for the future. It started well, with the exception of an injury in November, he was regularly in the gate, fending off 91.6 percent of the shots, the people in front of the towering Nathan MacKinnon did the rest.
But at the provisional climax came the shock: he was injured during an open-air game in front of more than 40,000 fans in mid-February. The Czech Pavel Francouz took over and did it so well in the last few weeks before the Corona break that Grubauer was by no means the clear number one at the restart. During the test and placement games, both shared the job – and both played big. So coach Jared Bednar did not want to decide who he will start the play-offs with. For Grubauer, the start into the hot phase will be one into the unknown. But he already knows that from 2018. A few months later he was standing on a stage in Rosenheim with lederhosen and a Stanley Cup.
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