Worst Dressed NHL Teams of 2017-18
This list compiles the NHL teams that have been the worst-dressed when they've hit the ice in the 2017/18 NHL season.I'm sorry, but the blue/green/white combo doesn't look fresh like it used to. The 'stick in the rink' jersey, had it been active this year, would've helped bump the Canucks down a few spots (or up, depending on your perspective of "worst" lists) on the list since it's the franchise's first and best look.
I think the team could stand to dump the green on their primary and away jerseys. Perhaps that's all it'll take to help out a team that can't find any love on the ice or on their sweaters.
The jerseys are a weird design, first off. There are stripes and bands in all the wrong places and the whole thing looks cluttered. Then there's the "primary logo," which needs to be downgraded to "text logo" yesterday while the eagle "W" logo deserves its place at the center of a sweater.
I mean, look at the logo in the image to the left. From a distance, it looks like somebody took a picture of an incomplete game of pick-up sticks and made it a logo. I get that it's an update of their original 1974 logo, but the 1970s was an awkward era for logo design. Look up the logos used in the old WHA, and you'll see what I mean.
This team NEEDS to switch to their "O" jerseys. Their center ice logo is the "O," for Pete's sake. Ever since the Reebok Edge jersey switch, the team has been one of the dullest-looking teams on the ice.
The patterning (which I believe is identical to the Penguins' old jerseys) maybe looked modern in 2007 when it was unveiled, but most teams that started off with Edge jersey templates switched out of them once they woke up and smelled the boring. I'm expecting a rebrand for next season. Let's hope my (and pretty much everyone else's) expectations are met.
Aside from the first few teams listed (in the order that originated with me, anyways), most of the teams are primarily guilty of looking dull, not outright ugly.
The Kings are an excellent example of a team that used to be gorgeous (with the royal blue and gold) but has decided to take the colorless route in recent years and uses black as their primary color. I do admit to liking the Gretzky-era black and white uniforms, which their current set is similar to, but also inferior to. The horizontal lines that stretch from arm to arm clutter up the jersey. The letter and number font is cartoonish when it should look solid and angular like most teams in professional sports (I'm a supporter of basic varsity fonts on jerseys), and the crest simply isn't as good as the 1988-1998 one.
This team has always been on the unattractive side of the league. First, they had a logo with lime green in it, which was not a good idea. It wasn't until this season that they ditched their old letter and number font (which was easily among the worst ever to disgrace a hockey jersey), so that helped them out a tad.
However, the overall design of their jerseys is boring. They need to get more creative with the striping. Take a few pages out of the Bruins' book, maybe. That kind of striping could really make a difference because the primary logo is great and deserves better.
I don't get the black shoulders. They've had them since 2015 (a year after they changed their name from "Phoenix" to "Arizona"), and they look awkward. I understand the decision to incorporate more black into the jerseys (since black is a part of all their logos), but the execution isn't great.
The team has never been stand-out stylish, but their decision to replicate the look of the Leafs, while upgrading their overall look, made them the most unoriginal team in the league. They're practically a carbon copy of the Leafs' uniforms, save for a lightning bolt on their shorts.
They simplified their jerseys for the 2017/18 season, and I don't know why. They were maybe the only team to make piping look good, and they ditched it. The whole "guitar string" number idea matched really well with the piping going down the chest, so now that half of that combo is gone, it makes the other half look a little out of place.
The chest logo already looked sort of small in the center of the jersey, so now it looks like it's in the middle of an ocean of gold (or white) nothingness.
The team's uniforms were garish from 2008 to 2014 when they had that awful Reebok Edge piping thing going on. They went back to their 1998-2007 look at the start of the 2014/15 season, but what they should've done was gone back to their 1967-1984 digs because the dark blue really doesn't do anything for the Blues.
I like the teal, make no mistake. There's just not a whole lot to look at with these jerseys. The emblems are fine, the fonts are fine, the color scheme is decent (they should either use more orange or get rid of it altogether to make it work), but there's not much passion behind the design.