Adidas teases NHL jerseys coming June 20
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In a coordinated social media effort today, Adidas and the NHL began teasing the new sweaters that will be revealed next week. In fact, they included an official date of June 20 — next Tuesday. The jerseys will be revealed the day before the 2017 NHL Awards in Las Vegas.
At the time of this writing, 27 of 31 teams posted the teaser images to their social media accounts. Take a quick look and then I'll address some observations and predictions. UPDATE 6/13: The Montreal Canadiens added theirs on Tuesday morning.
The teams that did not reveal teaser images today are the Chicago Blackhawks, Pittsburgh Penguins, and Toronto Maple Leafs. Why? The Penguins may be a little preoccupied with their Stanley Cup celebrations.
The others are Original Six teams who have "untouchable" uniform designs that haven't changed in decades — and telling their fans new jerseys are coming could send them into an unnecessary frenzy. Plus Toronto just debuted a new look this season which is unlikely to be altered.
That being said, most of the teaser images seen today did not indicate any significant changes. While a new sweater construction is all but assured, jersey designs across the board should stay generally the same. But there were a few surprises.
- Looks like the Buffalo Sabres may not be returning to royal blue after all — despite recent rumors. You could say it's just the shadows and general darkness of the image, but compare the blue seen in the Sabres photo with that of the Islanders, Blues or Rangers — all of which are royal blue.
- There's been some talk of whether the Colorado Avalanche would switch to their Rockies-style logo. As we see here, that will have to wait until at least 2018.
- We have confirmation the Edmonton Oilers will go with an orange primary jersey next season. And while reports have circulated that the blue will go darker, it's a little difficult to tell if that's true of this photo given all the heavy shadows.
- The Minnesota Wild will indeed go green in the fall. But surprisingly, they will join the Canadiens and Panthers with a new horizontal chest stripe. What's visible in the image is wheat colored but it's tough to tell whether there may be any other colors within the stripe.
- As for the rumors that teams like the Flames and Devils were going with retro style uniforms next season, that was more wishful thinking than anything else. These images dispel those myths.
Perhaps most interesting, the Vegas Golden Knights are confirmed to have grey sweaters with this teaser. Look closer, brighten the image and you'll see some unique embellishments within the crest, reminiscent of what we saw with Sweden during the World Cup of Hockey last September.
In fact, those embellishments have been part of the logo since it was first revealed last November. There's a darker shade of grey and a lighter shade of gold used to display those elements in non-embroidered form. (Thanks to @SinBinVegas for that photo.)
So the countdown is on now. Just a week left until we finally see all the new Adidas NHL jerseys!