Hockey, HOT TAKES, SPROTS

Winners and losers from the NHL jersey reveal

National Hockey League

It’s been a busy off-season for the NHL with Vegas joining the league and announcing its first players tonight with the expansion draft.

But the league also made news on Tuesday night because it revealed its new jerseys made by Adidas, and also gave us our first looks at the new Vegas Golden Knights jerseys.

Some jerseys came out looking better than others, and we’re here to determine who won, and who lost, with the new jerseys.

Winner: Vegas Golden Knights

Regardless of what you think of their jerseys (Personally, I think they’re kind of boring and look video game create-a-team-ish) they finally have jerseys now, and they will sell a ton of them. When a new team is launched, all anyone wants to see is the first jersey, and they have that now. It’ll be interesting to see how it looks on ice and not on a mannequin at some event, but regardless, they have jerseys. Oh yeah, and the white gloves they showed on the mannequin at the event are horrible, those won’t last past this season.

Loser: Nashville Predators

I’ll level with you, in most cases I think going simpler is better on jerseys. But Nashville’s odd piping and shoulder swoops actually worked for them. The new ones from Adidas are just so…plain. It looks so generic, like it’s missing something. Major downgrade for the Preds, especially coming off a season where they reached the Stanley Cup Final.

Winner: New Jersey Devils

Most of the changes to the jerseys were minor, and even in the case of the Devils, it wasn’t a massive overhaul, but the simplifying of the collar and shoulders, as well as adding those wonderful elbow stripes really makes this jersey stand out now. Very cool that they found elements of all the teams that came before them. This jumps up into the discussion of best non-Original 6-jersey in the league.

Loser: Edmonton Oilers

There was absolutely nothing wrong with the Oilers old jerseys, either the orange, which the fans voted on and said they liked more, or their original blue ones. These just seem to lack pop with the blue being taken out even more. They’re also using a darker shade of blue, which, eh whatever. It feels like this was tinkering just to tinker, and it didn’t turn out great.

Winner: Buffalo Sabres

Remember what I said about how Nashville actually worked with the weird piping and shoulder swoops? Yeah, the exact opposite was true for Buffalo. They have great colors, a great logo, and had it all ruined by pointless silver piping on the old jerseys. Just by getting rid of that, these look so much better and really allows the logo and colors to stand out more, especially on the blue jerseys. Big upgrade.

Loser: Colorado Avalanche

If you’ve been a fan of the Avalanche since their start in 1995-96, this is a win. But let’s be honest, the Avalanche have never had good jerseys or colors, even by the 90s standards when these were made. And they certainly haven’t aged well. This was the one team I thought that could have used a big makeover…and instead they went the lazy route and went back to the jerseys they wore before the new Reebok templates. It’s not bad, I guess, it just feels like a wasted opportunity.

Winner: Adidas

When it was announced that Adidas was taking over the NHL jerseys, and when the Predators became the first leak of the new ones, everyone expected the worst. After all, they did not have a good track record in college football.

But. They didn’t majorly screw anything up. Sure some jerseys are downgrades, but that happens with every re-design and new maker. They did well with a lot of teams and their tweaks, and most importantly, didn’t screw with any iconic looks that people have come to know over the years.

Loser: People who just bought jerseys

You knew the Adidas ones were coming, and that there was a chance your team might be changing its jersey, so if you were one of those teams who did get tweaked or new jerseys, tough luck. But if you didn’t, and you like the old design better, you can now probably get one super cheap, just because it says Reebok on it instead of Adidas.

So yeah, that’s my quick and dirty take on the new NHL jerseys, any thoughts from you?

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