Thursday: Viva Las Vegas

Hello everyone, welcome back again!

I was going to talk about the new Adidas jerseys today, but I'll save that for something that may be coming pretty soon. I'll give my full reviews on next week's post, but for now I'll say that my reaction to the Adidas jerseys are that they're either a hit or miss, and there really aren't any in between (at least not the new designs).

Along with that, the Awards and expansion draft were last night, and as a Pens fan I can say I think I held it together there at the end.

Huh? Did you ask if I'm crying? Uh..no..my eyes are just sweating.

All in all I think Vegas got a decent team, nothing too special aside from a few gems including James Neal and Fleury, but if they play their cards right and develop some of their many upcoming draft picks well, they might be a pretty decent team in a few years. I guess we'll wait and find out.

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It may not be a big week when it comes to voting as we only have COTW to vote for, but it is a big week for us concept creators, as the HJC Open will be closed at noon tomorrow, so if you're planning on entering, get those entries in!

COTW June 9-15 vote (ends Friday @ noon ET)

HJC Open Round Robin entries (due Friday @ noon ET)

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Anthony C. - French River Rapids

+Traditional striping is normally a good path to take.

+Good color balance.

+I like the font.

-The back of the jersey inside the collar on the red jersey should be blue, not white.

-The Rapids have a very interesting white jersey currently (at least I think it's the current one),  so taking that unique design away doesn't work too well.

-On a similar note, it's not very creative to just use a Blackhawks road/Oiler type of template and recolor it. Anyone with basic skills in an image editing program can do that. Be more creative.

Overall: 4/10

Anthony C. - Ottawa 67's

+This design is simple yet effective. I like the way the white striping pops out.

+The logo is also a simple and effective way to go about this.

-The 67's does end up pretty small, though.

-The TV numbers especially blend in a bit too much. The back numbers also suffer, but not as bad.

-Flip the colors on the pants striping to match the jersey.

-Again, this design isn't too creative or out of the box, so it's hard to give you too much credit. Based on some of your other concepts I know you can do better than these basic template-y concepts.

Overall: 5/10

Brian B. - Vegas Golden Knights

+Am I reviewing a concept, or the Knights actual jerseys? I know you had the draft hat to work off of, but these are pretty spot on.

-The only things you got wrong were the extra black stripe on the white jersey, the hem striping, and the font (I think, though it would be hard to get that right without access to it). This isn't even a bad thing about your concept, it's just inaccurate to the actual design.

-I'm not a fan of the red collar insert here. I like adding more red to the jersey, but I think it just stands out in the wrong way.

+I like Vegas' actual gold number trim better, but I think red number trim works just fine as well.

Overall: 8/10

Burkus Circus - Minnesota Wild

+I really like the look of this one right off the bat. I'm not sure the significance of the number and type of stripes, but it looks good.

-I would either add one more stripe to the hem and socks, or remove one from the arms. No reason not to keep it consistent if you ask me.

+That shoulder yoke works really well to balance the colors and make sure there isn't too much red.

-The back numbers look just a tad too big to me, but considering how small the difference would be it could easily just be me.

+I wonder what this design would look like in green, with wheat as the secondary color, and red making up the smaller stripes. That might look really good.

Overall: 8/10

Burkus Circus - Nashville Predators

-This one, on the other hand, doesn't jump out at me the same way the other one does.

+I do think the Preds would look good in a navy blue alternate jersey.

+I think the striping pattern you chose could work..

-But on this concept it looks a bit busy. It could possibly be because the striping goes up so high on the arms, which also cramps the TV numbers.

-I'm personally not a fan at all of italicized fonts on hockey jerseys, so I'm not too keen on this choice.

-I think the design would look much better if you replaced the light blue with yellow.

-Out of any predators logo you could choose to use, why that one? The current pred head is the only decent one, the rest are much too complex and busy.

Overall: 6.5/10

Jets96 - Vancouver Canucks

+If you ask me, you don't really need to "try to make the orca logo work" because I think it's just fine. It's not my favorite, that would be the modern stick-in-rink, but I think it works just fine.

+One thing I don't like about it currently, though, is the arched "VANCOUVER" over it, so I'm glad you removed it.

+I do think the green outline you put on the logo looks pretty good.

+I'm a big fan of the second shade of blue added to the jersey striping.

+The colors are balanced really well. Unlike St.Louis, you don't have too much navy on the road jersey.

-As I mentioned before I like the stick-in-rink, so I would prefer that as the shoulder patch, but Johnny V definitely isn't a bad choice either.

-I'm not a big fan of that font. I know it's the Canucks' font, but I would change it up.

Overall: 8.5/10 and my COTW Nomination

Wyatt Z. - Detroit Red Wings

+Touching one of the untouchable original 6 teams is hard to do, so I give you props for doing so here.

+I like the idea of going with a Cougars inspired look.

-I would make the stripes thicker, though, and also drop the gray/silver stripe. That one only makes sense to me for the Centennial Classic, and even then I think it would have been better in just red.

-The white gloves are really not a good move. Just look at the Vegas jersey display from the other night. Thank god they aren't using that.

+The road seems like a fauxback inspired by the Cougars' or Falcons' chest stripe design, and I think this is a good idea in theory.

-I don't think it works too well for the team's primary jersey though.

-Again, I'd lose the silver stripe and just keep it consistent.

-Those back numbers are way too hard to see.

-White pants are also a no-go.

-Not a fan of the logo on the cuffs.

-From a logical standpoint, the goalie wouldn't have a different set of pads for home and away. That would just be extra money to spend and extra gear to break in.

Overall: 6/10

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And that's all for today! I hope you enjoyed the post, thanks for reading, and I'll see you all again next week.