2020-2021 NHL Changes

[Crabcake]

11 minutes ago, habsfan1 said:

For the record, orange always comes off as more popular than the dynasty jerseys:

 

 

How much of that can be chalked up to “it’s the current home jersey” though? The average fan who wants to buy a new Connor McDavid jersey isn’t going to go searching for a jersey he wore for a season or two, they’re gonna buy the current version. Even with a team that is so obsessed with its past like Edmonton, you’d have to think that most fans will buy whatever is the current jersey no matter if it’s objectively a better looking one or not. 

[AstroCree]

Look how the Orange/Royal Blue pop. It's just gorgeous. 

 

The current colors feel muted. The shade of orange the Oilers are using doesn't pop like it used to. They keep changing sets every few years to set a beginning of some "new era" which always ends up being the same as the rest. Just stick with the dynasty sets and leave it. Look at Buffalo. Sabers FINALLY brought back their classic look and it's now one of the best in the league. 

[Delicate Genius]

On 5/9/2021 at 5:08 PM, habsfan1 said:

For the record, orange always comes off as more popular than the dynasty jerseys:

Those pictures are from the 2017 playoffs when the fans were asked by the team to wear orange to the games ("Orange Crush"), though. There was a lot of blue at the games during the season.

 

The Oilers have tried pushing orange as the colour of the McDavid era (the above pictures and then when adidas took over). Most people I've seen online or talk to prefer a return to blue as the primary colour. The 2015-17 set was nearly perfect. It would be an easy fix to just go back to those or something similar.

[habsfan1]

8 hours ago, Crabcake said:

How much of that can be chalked up to “it’s the current home jersey” though? The average fan who wants to buy a new Connor McDavid jersey isn’t going to go searching for a jersey he wore for a season or two, they’re gonna buy the current version. Even with a team that is so obsessed with its past like Edmonton, you’d have to think that most fans will buy whatever is the current jersey no matter if it’s objectively a better looking one or not. 

 

Less fans would have bought the new stuff imo, if they were so strongly against these major changes to the dynasty uniforms. They would have promoted the Blue Crush instead.

 

It took 5 years, more or less, for the Oilers to move completely away from royal dynasty look. That's a short amount of time. If they were retired this soon, someone got tired of them rather quickly.

 

The Islanders quickly ditched the Fisherman, when their classic blue uniforms were changed. They slowly went back to royal like the Sabres. Between 1996-2021, the Oilers seem to embrace their various usages of navy blue.

[Ridleylash]

3 hours ago, habsfan1 said:

The Islanders quickly ditched the Fisherman, when their classic blue uniforms were changed. They slowly went back to royal like the Sabres. Between 1996-2021, the Oilers seem to embrace their various usages of navy blue.

I would hazard a guess that the navy thirds may not have sold particularly well compared to other jerseys, and that's why they're looking into bringing back the royal blues. The royal blue Oilers jersey seems to always sell really well, which is why the team keeps going back to it. Feels like they're the Canadian Islanders in that they keep deviating from the past only to get sucked back in because it's just consistently a better selling jersey.

 

Could also be a feeling out of trends, as many sports teams brand around; after all, the Sabres just ditched navy for royal and the Islanders haven't had navy in years, and with the Flames going back to their 80's look to thunderous applause, the Sens also returning to a throwback design full-time and the Coyotes all but confirmed to be introducing a white Kachina this offseason, the Oilers are likely looking at the clear trend towards throwback looks being brought back full-time that's developed within the NHL and weighing their options.

 

On an offhand note, I wouldn't be particularly surprised if the Ducks were also weighing their options. The Wild Wing was the third-best selling Reverse Retro and people are practically chomping at the bit to see the Ducks go throwback full-time, especially ahead of an anniversary season. It makes business sense to go with what is your most popular and best-selling look.

[Nordiks_19]

15 hours ago, habsfan1 said:

For the record, orange always comes off as more popular than the dynasty jerseys:

 

 

Like someone said, the team asked the fans to wear orange during their playoff fun before switching to orange full time. Also, when they released their orange jersey, they were giving one for free to every person who bought, or renewed season tickets, wich means A LOT of fans had it

[Point1]

God I hated those Oilers orange jerseys with the royal blue. Looked so gaudy.

 

Honestly, I can live with the current ones. I just wish they had filled in the sleeve striping:

 

[ldconcepts]

I don't think the Oilers can really go wrong any way that isn't promoting the current thirds, they have no shortage of nice uniforms they can base a set around.

Their current road jersey may be my favourite, but the striping on its orange counterpart is the only part of the set that doesn't work IMO. I feel like something like this quick mockup, where the striping is copied from their classic blues instead of recoloured, would work well while still matching the road.

 

[BBTV]

Why do the "drips" in the letters tail off to the left on the ILE and beginning of the R but then are straight by the end of the R and the S?

[Ridleylash]

16 minutes ago, spartacat_12 said:

I actually think this is one of the rare cases where the Adidas collar actually looks better than the previous one. I always loved the Kachinas, but this collar is waaaayyyyy too thick:

 

To be fair, that was a Koho thing; the CCM and Reebok throwbacks didn't have that big of a design;

 

 

I think this version would look fine on a Winter Classic-styled collar design, which is what I suspect the fabric change might be about considering that most people tend to prefer that style to the pentagon style.

[officeglenn]

With the info from Icethetics for 2021-22, I've split off a few replies from this thread into a 2021-22 NHL Changes here. Maybe keep the Oilers talk here, though, since it was spurred on by what they'll be wearing in this season's playoffs.

[charger77]

I actually liked the big collars that appeared on the Coyotes, Blues and Penguins jerseys of late 90s

[dont care]

2 hours ago, BBTV said:

Why do the "drips" in the letters tail off to the left on the ILE and beginning of the R but then are straight by the end of the R and the S?

Because at that point it’s just following the curve of the circle

[habsfan1]

I didn't know the Oilers attendance were given free orange jerseys. That's a good point.

 

Still, I thought there would be a more vocal demand for royal blue. Either that or the team isn't listening.

 

The dynasty uniforms replaced the rbk edge glorified practice jerseys, the worst look in Oilers history. Perhaps everyone involved at the time were happy to have anything replace that horrendous look. Once that was over with, someone got tired of royal and thought navy would be the better accent color.

[Ridleylash]

1 hour ago, habsfan1 said:

Still, I thought there would be a more vocal demand for royal blue. Either that or the team isn't listening.

I mean, they brought it back for the Reverse Retro when they could have probably done a version of their 1996 white set in blue, a white version of the gear jersey or something of that nature. And now there's murmurs of them bringing the throwback back into the rotation in a era where a bunch of teams are going back to throwback looks.

 

I think they wanted to establish orange and navy as their colors, but it hasn't stuck. You still see a lot of royal blue and orange jerseys in the crowd at Rogers Place, whether it's the Adidas throwback, the Reebok WHA throwback, the royal blue Reebok jerseys or actual vintage stuff. They're kind of like the Islanders in that way.

[andrewharrington]

13 hours ago, BBTV said:

Why do the "drips" in the letters tail off to the left on the ILE and beginning of the R but then are straight by the end of the R and the S?

Fluid dynamics are a little different on the drugs that were clearly required to create the Oilers’ logo. 

[Chromatic]

Put this in the unpopular opinions camp, but I actually really like the current Oilers uniforms, and I think they should stay in Orange.

[monkeypower]

On 5/10/2021 at 10:12 AM, BBTV said:

Why do the "drips" in the letters tail off to the left on the ILE and beginning of the R but then are straight by the end of the R and the S?

 

I think they were trying to keep the half-circle thing at the bottom going and then thought the straight ends of the R and S fit the arc better? I don't know. The real answer is because it was (poorly) designed back in the '70s and hasn't been updated, so it still has the, ahem, quirks of something designed in the '70s.

 

The bottoms of "drips" also aren't evenly spaced with the outside circle either. I think @Sport fixed it once?

[CreamSoda]

The current home jersey has that navy stripe that gets lost in the orange.  So I would make this tweak to the Oilers home:

 

[Sport]

15 minutes ago, monkeypower said:

 

I think they were trying to keep the half-circle thing at the bottom going and then though the straight ends of the R and S fit the arc better? I don't know. The real answer is because it was (poorly) designed back in the '70s and hasn't been updated, so it still has the, ahem, quirks of something designed in the '70s.

 

The bottoms of "drips" also aren't evenly spaced with the outside circle either. I think @Sport fixed it once?

 

I'm amazed I was able to find this.