Saturday: NHL's Fantastic Five

I’m going to start by saying it’s an honor to be writing for HJC, even if it might only be for one day.  Hello readers, I’m Thomas and I’m here to bring you my top 5 current NHL jerseys.

Not much has happened in hockey recently. But reading HJC daily, plus these extra weekend posts really has added more enjoyment to this offseason. Hopefully my post will do the same for you.

Before I was told that my post was to be about my top 5 current NHL jerseys, I had never really thought about which ones were my favourites.  Many jerseys raced through my mind, since most teams have solid jerseys. I knew picking only 5 would be a challenge.  I already knew of two jerseys that I really liked which did make it into my top 5, but the rest i took time to think about and here are my top 5.

5.Winnipeg Jets Away Jersey

Image from shop.nhl.com

Last year was probably the most excited I’ve ever been to see the start of a hockey season, the main reason is that my town got their team back.  This one will probably be biased since it is my hometown team and there’s emotions behind it, but all the same I like the jersey.  

I like everything about this jersey, but my favourite part here is how they stepped away from traditional striping.  Like Colin said last week, the jersey moves away from the Reebok Cookie Cutter style.  The little details in the jersey are what makes it. The small silver trim on the striping and the hem really adds a nice touch to this jersey and the Winnipeg word-mark on the inside of the collar is also another little detail that makes this sweater work.

The main crest of this jersey is also one of my favourites, partly because it resembles Winnipeg’s military history. Even though it’s a military inspired logo it has hockey written all over it.

Image from jets.nhl.com

4.New York Rangers Away Jersey

Image from shop.nhl.com

Nash’s name and number are rocking this jersey aren't they?

I love this jersey and the main reason is the yokes.  The only other team with square yokes is the Devils, and what other team has a cool striping pattern on their shoulders?  The 3D numbers on the Rangers jerseys were always something I loved, though in my opinion me they’ve always looked nicer on the away jersey.  

Something else that’s great about this jersey is the simple and classic feel the striping and word-mark brings.  At the same time it’s also really unique from any other teams jersey, with the curved font, the block numbers, and the yokes.  The whole uniform is nice too. I love the red pants with two small stripes.  Everything in this uniform just fits together really nicely so I hope they don’t make many changes to this jersey.

Image from rangers.nhl.com

3.Edmonton Oilers Home Jersey

Image from shop.nhl.com

As every team has been doing recently, Edmonton has gone back to their classic jerseys of the 80s.  That was definitely a smart move for them since they had one of the worst jerseys of the 2000s.

I love that the Jersey is classic and it has meaning since they wore almost the same jersey up until the mid 90s.  This jersey was a part of the Gretzky era where the Oilers had a lot of success, and they brought them back to see the Oilers win again.  In my opinion I think they have the best colours in the league for any jersey. The Orange and blue go so nicely together, and the collar is a unique feel that brings the old Oilers look back with something new to spice it up, which is definitely a plus. Everything on the Jersey looks in place and I wouldn’t change anything.

The present Oilers home and away set is 100 times better then it was before, and I think the Oilers should keep this look for many years into the future.

Image from oilers.nhl.com

2.Tampa Bay Lightning Alternate Jersey

Image from shop.nhl.com

This jersey is one that many people don’t like, and even I didn’t like it in the beginning.  The Uniform just kind of throws itself out there and even scares people away at first. After a while it started to grow on me, and now it’s ended up as my 2nd favourite jersey this year.

The jersey has many more elements to it then Tampa’s regular jersey set and stands out as a respectable Alternate.  It brings back the colours from the original Tampa jerseys, but instead utilizes the Blue as the main colour.  To me the Blue stands out a lot more on the sweater than the black did.  It makes the secondary colours pop more than they did on the almost solid black jerseys they wore before.  It definitely looks better than their reebok cookie cutter years.

I like that this sweater incorporates the original Lightning logo, but has the ‘Bolts’ wordmark that says they are doing something new.  My favourite part about the uniform is how they put the lightning bolt on the side of the pants.  This jersey really says ‘Lightning’ all over it and I think it’s their best sweater yet.

Image from lightning.nhl.com

1.Pittsburgh Penguins Alternate Jersey

Image from shop.nhl.com

The Penguins were lucky enough to be a part of one Winter Classic which produced a really nice jersey for the penguins.  In The second Winter Classic they were a part of, they sported what was definitely the best jersey I’ve seen.

The Penguins home and road are those ugly Cookie Cutter jerseys that Reebok had to make.  Being a part of the Winter Classic, they made a beautiful classic sweater that could stand up as their alternate for years.  I love that this is based off of the first jersey they ever had as a club starting in 1967. However this is not just a remake, since they reversed the colours and added the circle logo that has never been seen as a main crest before.

I love the striping on this jersey. Even though there's five stripes, it isn’t too much.  It’s hard to pull that off on a sweater, since usually the more stripes it has, the more cluttered it looks.  The Penguins managed this nicely on the jersey.  The blue on the sweater is really dark, it’s almost like a black, but the light blue on the stripes and collar really stand out nicely.

I also like that they remade the numbers from the 70s, but made them look like they’d belong in hockey today.  Colouring the numbers vintage white was a smart move, as the logo and striping is vintage white also.  I love the numbers on this jersey, but that might be because to me they look like a rounded version of the Rangers numbers.

Image from penguins.nhl.com

Thats a wrap, those are my five favourite jerseys in the Nhl currently.  It was a pleasure to write for you, and i hope you enjoyed the post.  Thanks for reading and I hope to be back to write for you guys again.