Some news from around the NHL today:
Fanatics has officially taken over from Adidas as the jersey provider for the NHL. What this means moving forward: for now, things are staying pretty much the same, the only changes are the removal of the shoulder dimples from the AdiZero jerseys, a slight change to the NHL crest on the jerseys and of course the Fanatics logo on the back as opposed to the Adidas one. For at least the first year, there shouldn't be too many changes from Adidas, the jerseys are still being made in the same factory and with the same template as Adidas. This may change in their second year, as the same thing happened between Reebok and Adidas, where Adidas stuck with the Reebok Edge template until their second year as manufacturer, before developing their own. However, based on what Fanatics has been saying, I anticipate they will stick with the Adidas template, or make only tiny, minor changes as the AdiZero jerseys were very popular among both fans and players.
You can now buy the actual, game worn jerseys off the shelves. In addition to the 3 tiers of jerseys you could previously buy. It will cost more, but it is nice to know that if you want to spend the extra money, you can get the actual jersey worn by the players on the ice. You could not do this with Adidas or Reebok.
All teams, except for Utah released their new jerseys for next year. Pretty much the whole NHL remained the same, barring the two Socal teams who have both gone to altered versions of old looks.
These are the new Kings jerseys, which I think are excellent.
They've essentially just gone to the old Gretzky era jersey, but they've made some changes to the crest that I really like and I think make the whole thing look more cohesive. I know a lot of people wanted to see them go back to the classic Purple and Yellow colour scheme, but to me these are better and probably my favorite Kings jerseys in their history with the changes to the crest.
Here's the Ducks home, I couldn't find a great picture of the Away, though I actually do like the white jersey better. I have mixed feelings about this one. It looks great as a whole and is a massive improvement over their current look which is one of the worst in the league. I like it overall but have some minor issues. These jerseys are very, very orange this could either look great or awful, I'll have to wait until I see them on the ice. The orange is a bit overwhelming. I'm not sure I'm sold on the orange eye in the logo yet, the other changes to the logo are positive ones imo. I absolutely love the font, they went for a drop shadow font ala New York Rangers and it is stunning. Definitely the best number kit on any active uniform, looks even better in orange on the away jersey.
Both of these are major improvements, these were two of the teams most in need of a shakeup. I think I like the Kings one better, but I'll have to wait till I see them on the ice to know for sure.
We will probably see Utah's jerseys in person for the first time at the draft on Friday.
