2021-2022 NHL Jersey Changes

[RyanMcD29]

This is really ending up as one of those things that look better in concept but is absolutely terrible in execution. Sure the black was a 4th color in a 4 color scheme, but the blue's really not holding its own each time they try to make it have a larger importance in the uniform whether that be the pant shells or the numbers (the helmet grew on me a bit as the season progressed to "it's fine").

[VDizzle12]

The Avs are definitely trying too hard to give blue and maroon equal weight in the brand. It's better since they removed the unnecessary black, but still could be simplified. They should never let blue and maroon touch, outline all numbers in gray and the pants/gloves should always match the color of the mountains. Sure this thinking would create a maroon-heavy white set. But honestly I don't think that's a bad thing. 

[CreamSoda]

Not sure why the gloves have a white trim.  They should have made that gray to help balance that color out more:

 

[monkeypower]

All you pro-black, anti-blue people have been Stockholm Syndromed into thinking the black equipment and numbers looked good. The black striping and the numbers were extraneous and the black equipment looked like a youth hockey team, but youth hockey has a pass because black is the default retail hockey equipment colour.

 

 

I think it's a chicken or the egg scenario where I don't know which came first in the design process, the black numbers/dark jersey stripe or the black equipment colours, but they ended up only existing to justify each other like some sort of paradox.

 

If the Avs and Kraken were swapped in the timeline and the Avs were the expansion team with their previous uniforms with the black equipment and numbers, it would be called out.

 

And I'm constantly surprised that everyone (the collective everyone) seems to be fine with the Avalanche using the Rockies logo. If it was the same franchise, than sure okay whatever, but it's not, so get your own logo Avalanche!

[DTConcepts]

2 hours ago, VDizzle12 said:

The Avs are definitely trying too hard to give blue and maroon equal weight in the brand. It's better since they removed the unnecessary black, but still could be simplified. They should never let blue and maroon touch, outline all numbers in gray and the pants/gloves should always match the color of the mountains. Sure this thinking would create a maroon-heavy white set. But honestly I don't think that's a bad thing. 

 

This is the correct take. I'm not sure why everyone is so dead-set on only having one set of gear -- it's not an unusual or novel idea to have different home/away gear.

[CreamSoda]

47 minutes ago, DTConcepts said:

 

This is the correct take. I'm not sure why everyone is so dead-set on only having one set of gear -- it's not an unusual or novel idea to have different home/away gear.

 

 

Tell that to the equipment managers and team staff.  

[monkeypower]

1 hour ago, DTConcepts said:

This is the correct take. I'm not sure why everyone is so dead-set on only having one set of gear -- it's not an unusual or novel idea to have different home/away gear.

 

It is unusual and novel though.

 

The only team in the NHL, to my knowledge, that have done different coloured pants for home and away were the expansion Capitals and that only lasted for one season. There are only two other instances, one concrete, that I can think of since then where there was a different set of home and away gear;

• I want to say that at some point when the Oilers brought the throwback back as an alternate for a period during the EDGE years (NHL Uniform Database says 2008-2011), the throwback was promoted to the primary home jersey with the white EDGE jersey remaining as the away and the home EDGE being demoted to alternate
• The Golden Knights white gloves

That's 30+ seasons in between the Capitals and the Oilers and then another six in between the Oilers and Golden Knights. It's so unusual and novel that not even the Finley Golden Seals did something like that and they rocked white skates.

 

Off the top of my head, I actually can't think of any non-NHL teams to have done different coloured home and away equipment, but there probably is somewhere.

 

18 minutes ago, CreamSoda said:

Tell that to the equipment managers and team staff.  

 

To be honest, I don't know if that would be a huge deal because they wouldn't have to bring both sets on road trips. They would just have to make sure they packed the right stuff before they left.

[Dante_X]

Rockies did it in their first season

 

http://nhluniforms.com/DefunctTeams/Rockies1.html

 

 

[AFirestormToPurify]

2 hours ago, CreamSoda said:

Not sure why the gloves have a white trim.  They should have made that gray to help balance that color out more:

 

 

Yeah either gray or burgundy maybe, since they don't care if blue and burgundy touch anyway lol

1 hour ago, monkeypower said:

All you pro-black, anti-blue people have been Stockholm Syndromed into thinking the black equipment and numbers looked good. The black striping and the numbers were extraneous and the black equipment looked like a youth hockey team, but youth hockey has a pass because black is the default retail hockey equipment colour.

 

I think it's a chicken or the egg scenario where I don't know which came first in the design process, the black numbers/dark jersey stripe or the black equipment colours, but they ended up only existing to justify each other like some sort of paradox.

 

If the Avs and Kraken were swapped in the timeline and the Avs were the expansion team with their previous uniforms with the black equipment and numbers, it would be called out.

 

And I'm constantly surprised that everyone (the collective everyone) seems to be fine with the Avalanche using the Rockies logo. If it was the same franchise, than sure okay whatever, but it's not, so get your own logo Avalanche!

A Canadiens jersey with black gear looks bad because there's absolutely no black on the jersey and the colors are much brighter. Awful comparison, sorry

It worked for the Avs because they had black stripes/numbers on their jerseys. I think I recall reading somewhere that black gear was supposedly temporary at first,  and that they ended up keeping it, probably because they won a Cup right away. Can't remember where I read that and if the gear was originally supposed to be in their brighter original shade of burgundy or slate blue. Either way, don't quote me on that lol, maybe it was just a rumor. But they didn't even have white helmets at first so I'm guessing there's some truth to the rumor that they had equipment problems at first. The Mighty Ducks also had trouble getting equipment manufacturers to get the eggplant right around the same time and also went for generic black gear because of that so maybe the Avs had trouble getting the right colors?

[AFirestormToPurify]

1 hour ago, DTConcepts said:

 

This is the correct take. I'm not sure why everyone is so dead-set on only having one set of gear -- it's not an unusual or novel idea to have different home/away gear.

Not only is it unusual, novel and unpractical like others have said, but it also means your uniform is poorly balanced if you need two different sets of pants for your home and away jerseys. It just creates a different problem instead of fixing anything imo

 

But to be fair, they could just use pant shells instead of new pants. Not sure why teams stopped doing that. Only works if the player is using the correct size obviously!

[monkeypower]

30 minutes ago, Dante_X said:

Rockies did it in their first season

 

http://nhluniforms.com/DefunctTeams/Rockies1.html

 

Ah, fair enough. So three then, still pretty unusual and novel.

 

24 minutes ago, AFirestormToPurify said:

A Canadiens jersey with black gear looks bad because there's absolutely no black on the jersey and the colors are much brighter. Awful comparison, sorry

 

It's not an awful comparison because it's exactly what I was explaining. A youth hockey team that's not black using black equipment because it's the default hockey equipment colour available for retail. That's what the Avs looked like.

 

24 minutes ago, AFirestormToPurify said:

It worked for the Avs because they had black stripes/numbers on their jerseys.

 

They had barely any black and it barely worked. Everybody just got used to it. In the words of Amir Blumenfeld, "Garbage becomes perfect over time as you get used to the garbage and forget what made it so bad". 

 

Like I said in my post above, the inclusion of the little black piping (on only the home) and then the black numbers (only on the away) seemed to only be there to justify the use of black equipment or vice versa.

 

24 minutes ago, AFirestormToPurify said:

The Mighty Ducks also had trouble getting equipment manufacturers to get the eggplant right around the same time and also went for generic black gear because of that so maybe the Avs had trouble getting the right colors?

 

Yes, the Ducks did have trouble getting the eggplant equipment (or at least that's the story that gets told, I don't know if I've ever seen that "officially" confirmed anywhere) but then they got the rightful eggplant equipment back after two seasons. They didn't have trouble getting the non-black equipment for 24 years like the Avs did.

 

The Ducks even had more black in their logo than the Avs do and they were able to use the eggplant equipment perfectly fine without using black striping, black numbers or black equipment.

 

Which looks better?

[TBGKon]

The Avs look good, its just so jarring compared to what we are used to.  If anything, it evokes a bit of their history as the Nordiques

 

[Ridleylash]

I think the main issue is black has never been prominent in their colorway; so the solid black equipment looked really out of place in a uniform that was 99% burgundy/blue/white. The black equipment felt very last-minute because of that, and I think the burgundy works much better as the dark color for the Avs' colorway, anyways.

 

It'd be like making the Ducks' buckets, gloves and pants gold; yeah, gold's part of their colorway, but it's not anywhere close to prominent enough in the jersey design to justify making it the equipment color.

[AFirestormToPurify]

8 minutes ago, monkeypower said:

 

Ah, fair enough. So three then, still pretty unusual and novel.

 

 

It's not an awful comparison because it's exactly what I was explaining. A youth hockey team that's not black using black equipment because it's the default hockey equipment colour available for retail. That's what the Avs looked like.

 

 

They had barely any black and it barely worked. Everybody just got used to it. In the words of Amir Blumenfeld, "Garbage becomes perfect over time as you get used to the garbage and forget what made it so bad". 

 

Like I said in my post above, the inclusion of the little black piping (on only the home) and then the black numbers (only on the away) seemed to only be there to justify the use of black equipment or vice versa.

 

 

Yes, the Ducks did have trouble getting the eggplant equipment (or at least that's the story that gets told, I don't know if I've ever seen that "officially" confirmed anywhere) but then they got the rightful eggplant equipment back after two seasons. They didn't have trouble getting the non-black equipment for 24 years like the Avs did.

 

The Ducks even had more black in their logo than the Avs do and they were able to use the eggplant equipment perfectly fine without having resorting to black equipment or black numbers.

 

Which looks better?

Of course the Ducks look better with eggplant gear. But in the Ducks' case, eggplant was the obvious choice since the bottom stripe of both their jerseys were jade. Jade equipment was probably never considered. Their color balance was perfect for both jerseys, jade never fought for attention the way slate blue does on the Avs jerseys. Unfortunately for the Avs, the choice was never as obvious. Burgundy equipment would have made the white jersey look better, but the burgundy jersey would have been a mess. Pick your poison, basically

I still disagree on the Habs comparison. The Avs clearly had black in their color scheme (even if it was a tertiary/trim color), the Habs never did. Not a good comparison at all, the Mighty Ducks comparison is much more fitting, I'll give you that

 

So basically, the Avs will never have an ideal gear color because the color balance on their uniforms is far from ideal. I still think black wasn't perfect but a much lesser evil option than blue or burgundy could ever be

[AFirestormToPurify]

2 minutes ago, Ridleylash said:

I think the main issue is black has never been prominent in their colorway; so the solid black equipment looked really out of place in a uniform that was 99% burgundy/blue/white. A pair of thin stripes and a collar stripe was all the black the actual original jersey had; compared to the blue, which dominated the arm and hem (and hell, black wasn't even on the white jersey outside of the logo and NOB!).

 

The black equipment felt very last-minute because of that, and I think the burgundy works much better as the dark color for the Avs' colorway, anyways. It'd be like making the Ducks' buckets, gloves and pants gold; yeah, gold's part of their colorway, but it's not nearly prominent enough in the jersey to justify making it the equipment color.

It looks last-minute because it probably was ahah. I think it kinda worked in a very late 90s way. Everything was dark and moody back then, so the black gear didn't look so out of place, if that makes sense. The blue gear just gives the uniform a whole different vibe, which I'm not sure I like yet, but it certainly does look a bit more modern and less grungy/xtReMe

Unless I'm just wearing nostalgia goggles, but I don't really feel like there's anything wrong with having a jersey associated with a certain era. If the Oilers, Islanders, Penguins, Flames and Flyers can wear their 80s and 70s throwbacks full time, why can't the Avalanche keep their 90s looking uniforms?

I'm not even sure what my point is anymore

[monkeypower]

44 minutes ago, AFirestormToPurify said:

Of course the Ducks look better with eggplant gear. But in the Ducks' case, eggplant was the obvious choice since the bottom stripe of both their jerseys were jade. Jade equipment was probably never considered. Their color balance was perfect for both jerseys, jade never fought for attention the way slate blue does on the Avs jerseys. Unfortunately for the Avs, the choice was never as obvious. Burgundy equipment would have made the white jersey look better, but the burgundy jersey would have been a mess. Pick your poison, basically

I still disagree on the Habs comparison. The Avs clearly had black in their color scheme (even if it was a tertiary/trim color), the Habs never did. Not a good comparison at all, the Mighty Ducks comparison is much more fitting, I'll give you that

 

So basically, the Avs will never have an ideal gear color because the color balance on their uniforms is far from ideal. I still think black wasn't perfect but a much lesser evil option than blue or burgundy could ever be

 

Obviously, eggplant was the obvious choice for the Mighty Ducks just as maroon or blue should have been for the Avalanche from day one. I just can't accept the "they had black piping or black numbers or black in their logo so the black equipment was fine" because there was barely any black on the jerseys and all of it seemed slapped on only there to justify the use black equipment (or the use of black equipment to justify the small amount of black on the jerseys).

 

I think there are a lot of similarities between the Mighty Ducks and the Avalanche jerseys and I don't see how you can call the Mighty Ducks colour balance perfect with eggplant equipment and yet have problems with the Avalanche using maroon equipment. The dark jerseys for both teams are pretty similar in terms of colour hierarchy, with the Avalanche having more blue than the Ducks did jade, and the Mighty Ducks white jersey colour balance is off just as much as the Avalanche, just in a different direction. The vast majority of the eggplant on the white jersey comes from the NOB, the numbers and the equipment. If you got a plain uncustomized white Mighty Ducks jersey off the rack, there is a collar and three stripes of eggplant that are the same striping size as, and is fighting for attention with, the grey, which is only a tertiary colour, with absolutely no eggplant in the primary logo and very little in the shoulder patch. The colour balance in the white set comes from the equipment and the lettering (which I think is what led to the colour balance issues with the 25th anniversary jersey).

 

 

Question though to you, and anyone else, what do you think about the Avs having pulled a Mighty Ducks and going with maroon equipment and not switching the blue mountain striping and instead flipping the maroon and white between the home and away. (I hope that makes sense, I'm not good enough at photoshop to make that happen ). I think the maroon pants would look the same with the maroon jerseys as the eggplant equipment did with the Mighty Ducks eggplant set and then the secondary striping, the equipment, the numbers and the NOB would be maroon on the white set which would help on the colour balance because it accomplishes the same thing the eggplant on the Mighty Ducks white set did.

[AFirestormToPurify]

25 minutes ago, monkeypower said:

 

Obviously, eggplant was the obvious choice for the Mighty Ducks just as maroon or blue should have been for the Avalanche from day one.

See that's what I mean, "maroon OR blue". You said it yourself. No obvious, no-brainer choice here

25 minutes ago, monkeypower said:

I think there are a lot of similarities between the Mighty Ducks and the Avalanche jerseys and I don't see how you can call the Mighty Ducks colour balance perfect with eggplant equipment and yet have problems with the Avalanche using maroon equipment

Easy solution would be, keep the Avs dark jersey the exact same, swap the mountain stripes to blue instead of maroon on the white jersey and go with burgundy gear (with maroon numbers as well). There's just not enough blue on the white jersey and it's been a problem from the start.

Either that or reverse the dark jersey and keep the white jersey intact. Basically, if both mountain stripes were the same color on both jerseys, you could go with either color for the gear and the whole thing would look much more balanced

The Ducks didn't have a lot of eggplant on their white jersey either but that's never been a problem because of the eggplant pants. I don't see how YOU don't see the difference Sure they look like a jade team if you're just looking at the white jersey by itself but the uniforms were designed as a whole, with the equipment in mind, I think. So when the players were wearing the white jerseys, they looked like an eggplant team. And that's the main difference with the Avs, their jerseys look fine by themselves when a fan is just pairing it with some jeans, but they will never be able to please everyone with the whole uniform because there's no obvious choice for equipment color. Every color had its own set of flaws imo, cause the main problem is that it's kinda hard to tell which is their primary color. Technically it's burgundy but with blue gear, that line is blurred

 

Maybe the real solution was a compromise. Black gear, except not solid black. With burgundy and blue stripes down the pants and with both colors also included in some way on the gloves. Maybe a burgundy cuff roll with silver text and blue fingers. Just an idea. Might have helped the black gear look less generic

[NYRFan]

No surprise at the bottom!

[CS85]

58 minutes ago, NYRFan said:

No surprise at the bottom!

 

Yeah, but that probably had pretty limited interaction based on the numbers.  Maybe under 1000?  Which is still very good, but not a big chunk of the NHL fanbase (there's a joke in there somewhere, but I'll let somebody else pick it up).

[AFirestormToPurify]

3 hours ago, NYRFan said:

No surprise at the bottom!

HOME jerseys, correct? Biggest head scratchers: ARI first, Dallas near the bottom, Blackhawks being almost smack dab in the middle. Lot of recency bias in those rankings which is understandable but I'm guessing not a lot of people voted in the first place