Tampa Bay Lightning Finally Unveil Alternate

Minimalism is best described as an art, lifestyle, and design trend where one uses as little as possible to convey as much as possible. In short trimming the fat or removing excess to get the most out of what is readily available and not being bogged down by detail. I only bring this up because it appears the Lightning design team was reading too many of those types of self help books when designing the team's 4th alternate in their 27 year history.

Photo from Tampa Bay Lightning Official Twitter

Tampa Bay Lightning Official Twitter 

With little build up, the Lightning took to the ice for their game against the once lowly St. Louis Blues and Adidas Hockey's Instagram page gave us an official look at a jersey that had been hinted at for months. I'm a big fan of these full body graphics that explain every little detail on the jersey, so here's one of those.

The jerseys themselves have no actual striping, the only thing on the black jersey aside from the logos and numbers is the rain gradient going up the arms. This gradient also abbeys inside the numbers on the back. Similar to Carolina's alternates, the shoulder patches are grey scale, and while the primary logo and tv numbers may appear to be white, they're actually reflective silver. The standard Lightning pattern pants return in black, while the socks appear to be just plain black with a less visible gradient on them.  These jerseys are being toted as the "disrupt the night", which means thee jerseys are likely supposed to resembled lightning flashes in the middle of the night. This is only reaffirmed looking at the names of the colours on the infographic.

Here are some HJC Writer opinions:

Ryan- "......At no point last night, were these shirts even close to anything that could be considered a rational jersey. Everyone who saw thewm is now dumber for having done so. I award you no points, and may God have mercy on your soul."

BPoe- "Boys, we may have a new turdburger on our hands. Turned on a stream of the lightning game. Good god are these things atrocious, they look like plain jerseys for the most part. DiSrupT thE nIgHT."

Justin- "Whether they win the cup or not, Tampa can rest assured they made history this year, unfortunately that history is given the NHL the worst jersey it’s ever seen. In all seriousness, These would make an excellent practice jersey template. Imagine a victory green Gradient for the Stars. Would be a beauty."

Steve- "I do like the shiny logo and lightning bolt pants stripe. OH GOD THE BACK NUMBERS! Honestly they should’ve called Nike if they wanted a good black jersey done, this is a one trick pony."

Sean- "Mr Stamkos, I don't feel so good"

Corey- "Uninspired and too minimalist for my liking. A hint of blue and something on the hem would make it palatable. Even a gradient design on the hem would look better than what they put out."

I'm sure we'll be hearing a lot about these for some time. Whether or not they'll dethrone the Turdburger as the worst alternate of the 2010s, that fact it's even in the same conversation is telling. Speaking of gradients and not feeling good.

Thanos best described these when he said "reality is often disappointing".

If you think you have a better take than the writers or intergalactic purple titans post them below, the best ones will be read out on next week's episode of the Jersey Nerds Podcast.