{"id":146116,"date":"2025-09-16T00:00:13","date_gmt":"2025-09-16T00:00:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/146116\/"},"modified":"2025-09-16T00:00:13","modified_gmt":"2025-09-16T00:00:13","slug":"new-nhl-jerseys-should-be-under-far-more-scrutiny-deseret-news","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/146116\/","title":{"rendered":"‘New’ NHL jerseys should be under far more scrutiny \u2013 Deseret News"},"content":{"rendered":"

Vancouver Canucks jerseys are like Taylor Swift albums: There\u2019s one for every era.<\/p>\n

When you see the \u201cFlying Skate<\/a>,\u201d images of Trevor Linden and Pavel Bure instinctively pop into your mind. The original orca jerseys<\/a> draw memories of the West Coast Express line; the blue and green orcas<\/a> belong to the Sedins and the current jerseys<\/a> are for Elias Pettersson and Quinn Hughes (though the difference between the latter two is underwhelming).<\/p>\n

It extends to the early days of the franchise, too \u2014 The \u201cFlying V<\/a>\u201d was the banner of Stan Smyl and Thomas Gradin, while the stick-in-rink<\/a> belongs to Orland Kurtenbach and the rest of the original squad.<\/p>\n

But when you see the Edmonton Oilers\u2019 current setup, do you associate it with Wayne Gretzky, Taylor Hall or Connor McDavid? It\u2019s a nice jersey, with a rich history, but that history was tainted by their first-overall pick era of the early 2010s.<\/p>\n

An unfortunate trend<\/p>\n

Nostalgia tells fans that jerseys from the past are superior, so rather than designing a new sweater for diehards to add to their collections, teams just lazily bring back the old ones.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s unfortunate.<\/p>\n

The Washington Capitals, for example, got plenty of good feedback when they introduced the red version of the \u201cScreaming Eagle\u201d<\/a> as their Reverse Retro in 2021. But on Monday, they revealed an almost identical jersey (with a few changes to the striping) \u2014 and they expect fans to pretend they don\u2019t already have the same ones hanging up in their closets?<\/p>\n

The New York Islanders and the Philadelphia Flyers have both limited their fans\u2019 closets to the same two colors and hardly any logo variation<\/a> for nearly 60 years.<\/p>\n

And that\u2019s without mentioning the Original Six teams, which, with a few exceptions, have rolled out the exact same jerseys for an entire century. They seem to believe tweaking anything would constitute sacrilege.<\/p>\n

If Gordie Howe, Steve Yzerman and Nick Lidstr\u00f6m jerseys are all the same as the ones the players currently wear, why would fans spend money on a new Lucas Raymond jersey?<\/p>\n

The Red Wings, like the Capitals, released a \u201cnew\u201d third jersey on Monday, though a casual fan would never know it was different than their regular ones.<\/p>\n

The one positive thing about this unveiling is the fact that the sponsor\u2019s logo is now on the shoulder, rather than the chest. Especially with a jersey like that of the Red Wings, there isn\u2019t enough room for anything extra on the front because the tip of the wing extends to where the captains\u2019 letters are.<\/p>\n

In 2024-25, the Red Wings\u2019 first year with a jersey sponsor, they moved Dylan Larkin\u2019s \u201cC\u201d to the left side to let the company\u2019s logo have more space. That\u2019s where most teams have it (and frankly where it belongs for everyone else), but the Red Wings had it on the right since Reebok started manufacturing the jerseys in 2007, and it had become a cool tidbit that the Wings got an exception to the rule.<\/p>\n

If every team were to do that, jerseys could be so much cleaner \u2014 especially when there\u2019s a Stanley Cup Final patch added to the mix (which made the Oilers\u2019 and Panthers\u2019 jerseys far too crowded this spring).<\/p>\n

\"\"NHL commissioner Gary Bettman, left, hands the Stanley Cup to Florida Panthers captain Aleksander Barkov (16) after defeating the Edmonton Oilers in Game 6 of the NHL hockey Stanley Cup Final Tuesday, June 17, 2025, in Sunrise, Fla. | AP Productive jersey changes in the NHL this year<\/p>\n

Being a young franchise, Seattle Kraken fans don\u2019t have many jerseys to choose from yet. But they took a step in the right direction last week when they dropped a glow-in-the-dark kit with an all-new color scheme.<\/p>\n

The Ottawa Senators likewise unveiled a new and exciting jersey with plenty of gold trim. These are sure to fly off the shelves.<\/p>\n

What should the Utah Mammoth\u2019s next jersey look like?<\/p>\n

I\u2019ve given some controversial opinions today, but here\u2019s one that everyone will agree on: The Utah Mammoth need a powder-blue jersey.<\/p>\n

They occasionally donned powder-blue practice jerseys last year, and they were absolutely gorgeous. While the team doesn\u2019t have an official game jersey in that color, some knockoff manufacturers have recognized the market for them \u2014 and fans are buying them.<\/p>\n

The team might as well capitalize off of that opportunity and give the people what they want.<\/p>\n

Of course, with everything else going on regarding the rebrand and the major construction efforts, nobody should blame them for not having produced them yet. But next year could present the perfect opportunity to roll them out.<\/p>\n

NHL commissioner Gary Bettman hinted in May<\/a> that Salt Lake City would be a great place to have an outdoor game (and he even implied that Rice-Eccles Stadium could host it). Teams almost always release new jerseys for outdoor games \u2014 and a cool powder-blue would go along perfectly with the winter theme.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Vancouver Canucks jerseys are like Taylor Swift albums: There\u2019s one for every era. When you see the \u201cFlying…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":146117,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[556],"tags":[64,63,575,85,7528],"class_list":["post-146116","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nhl","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-nhl","tag-sports","tag-utah-mammoth"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/146116","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=146116"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/146116\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/146117"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=146116"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=146116"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=146116"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}