What's in Store for the Stadium Series?

New event merchandise could be full of clues

I rarely get the opportunity for a good headline pun. Tonight we're taking a look at some new NHL Stadium Series T-shirts that are now showing up in stores. The designs could be offering some insight into what the forthcoming jerseys will look like.

We'll dive in with the New York Rangers first.

Photos from ebay (o_sports_gear)

A few things to note. First, the shirt is white. We'll see that's not the case with all of them and there's reason to believe they may suggest the colors of each team's Stadium Series jersey. For one thing, a source tells me the Rangers' jersey is, in fact, white.

It makes sense as the Rangers will be the designated "road team" for both of their Yankee Stadium games against the Islanders and Devils. Speaking of the Devils... (On a roll with these awful puns!)

Photo by @TheJerseyNYRFan (via Twitter)

A photo posted to Twitter by @TheJerseyNYRFan on Monday shows the back of the New Jersey Devils shirt. It's red with white numbers.

The tweeter also pointed out the coloring of the Devils' chrome Stadium Series logo on the "Cross River Rivals" tee seen in the middle. There's no green in sight. But it's likely that has more to do with the production costs associated with the number of colors used in the screen printing process.

Back to the Rangers for a moment.  The number treatment seen on these shirts is unlike anything the team has used before. The grey/silver evokes the design used on the Lady Liberty jerseys from back in the late '90s. But those numbers used red for the shadow rather than a thin outline.

Photo by Jessica D'Agata (@ayojess via Twitter)

This blue New York Islanders tee seems to confirm the idea that the shirts match the jersey colors. But look closely and you'll see this chrome Isles logo doesn't quite match the one released last week. The one on the shirt has rounded corners and an angled corner at the top of the Y.

To sum up, these are the colors and logos that will be representing these teams in January.

As far as jersey crests, I think it's accurate only for the Devils and Islanders. It sounds like the Rangers will, as usual, go with a wordmark across their chests and the shield will be used on the shoulders. Whether the crests will make use of this chrome-treated effect is anyone's guess. But I hope not.

Let's switch gears now to the Soldier Field game in Chicago.

Photos from ebay (o_sports_gear)

The Chicago Blackhawks have red Stadium Series T-shirts. As the home team, this makes sense. But the noteworthy element of these photos is the elongated number design. It's the standard Blackhawks font, but it's stretched out.

If you look back at the Rangers' shirts you'll notice the same thing. It's just more pronounced here.

The elongated design is very noticeable on the Pittsburgh Penguins shirts. Their jersey numbers are usually rather wide. Definitely not the case here. So could these number redesigns be an element of the "futuristic" jerseys we've heard about?

Based on the colors and crests, it doesn't appear things will look too different for Chicago's Stadium Series game. Here are the colors and crests based on what we've seen so far.

That leaves us with the California game at Dodger Stadium.

Just today, a new T-shirt showed up for the Los Angeles Kings with another new logo.

Photo from TEAM LA Store

The TEAM LA Store started selling this, described as a "ligature logo T-shirt." A ligature is basically a couple of letters joined together to create a unique letterform. It's the letters from the Kings' primary logo — which is also featured on the tee. However, it is not the same as the chrome logo unveiled last week. So that's nice and confusing.

What will be on the front of the Kings' Stadium Series sweater? Your guess is as good as mine, but I doubt it's this ligature. This shirt is different from the previous ones seen in this post. The others have the NHL shield in place of the Reebok logo near the neck — and apart from that and the chrome logo, there's nothing else on the front of them.

In other words, this shirt doesn't seem to be part of the same series as the others.

As for the Anaheim Ducks, I haven't seen a shirt yet. All I know is the jersey will be orange. That's according to a tweet by Ducks PR guy Adam Brady. This means the L.A.-based outdoor game may feature orange versus black. We already know the 2014 Winter Classic will see red versus blue. Nice to see the league branching out.

We don't have enough information to be certain yet, so this graphic is a bit of an educated guess on my part. Like I said, the Kings could end up wearing white. (I'm just hoping they don't.)

As we piece together the looks for the upcoming Stadium Series, what are you hoping to see or not see?