The NHL/Adidas have released their much anticipated ‘Reverse Retro’ jerseys and OH BOY has it sparked a ton of debates, power rankings, you name. I’ve seen a lot of dumb takes (not mine) and a lot I agree with. What’s crazy is that there are a lot of people that love one jersey, then a ton of people that hate that jersey. I know I know, you’re wondering “which ones do the incredibly smart and talented people over at Chirpin’ think are shit and which ones do they think are lit?” Well, lucky for you, we’re here to answer that for ya. This blog is our top 5 power rankings, where each person sent in their 5 favs, (except Ben, the Canadian, i’m sure you could tell by the fact he puts a U in every word, even tho they don’t need it). Regardless, let’s get into it shall we?
AB
1) Anaheim Ducks – The ultimate throwbacks. The Quack attack is back baby! These sweaters are so beautiful. The only way these could get better is if they change the team name back to the Mighty Ducks! Gimme a custom made Teemu Selanne right now.
2) Arizona Coyotes – These beauties are so sexy. They have a mixture of everything. The Kachina jersey, the moon, the desert with the purple background out of no where?! I love these bad boys.
3) St. Louis Blues – This is the literal definition of reverse retro jersey. They absolutely nailed this one. Bringing back the early 90’s jersey and just reverse the colors. I love the power red with blue bottoms. Bravo St. Louis.
4) Calgary Flames – These might be the most intimidating of the bunch. The Black red and yellow combo with the horse?! I do NOT want to get in the way of that. I’m picturing a lightning fast Johnny hockey flying down the wing in the all blacks right now. Love this color scheme and the logo is phenomenal!
5) Buffalo Sabres – One of my favorite color schemes with the royal blue, yellow, and white. I love these. It’s a clean, classic look. I’m a huge fan of the elbow stripes over the shoulder stripes. And they really nailed the waist stripe with the Buffalo in the stripe. It’s a beautiful logo to top it off as well!
DJ
1) Arizona Coyotes – The Yotes know how to make flashy look sophisticated. Their ’99 logo of the coyote with a hockey mask on half of its’ face was already dope, but adding the purple background to stay true to their modern color scheme enhances the overall shirt. And don’t get me started on the desertscape at the bottom of the shirt/sleeves, that’s my main reason why I ranked this retro jersey as my top pick.
2) Washington Capitals – The Washington Capitals bringing the screamin’ eagle back is iconic, but with the new twist of red, white, and blue. It feels like a modern-day Caps jersey, while still staying true to their roots. Not to mention keeping the Capitals text at the bottom of the shirt that extends onto the sleeves, as well as the capital building logo on the top of the sleeves. This shit just feels legendary to me.
3) Calgary Flames – Something about the ’98 flaming horse crest for the Flames gets me goin’. The color-scheme, the logo, overall just a 10/10 dope design in my opinion. It’ll definitely be an eye-catching jersey for next season.
4) New York Rangers – Lady Liberty made a come-back and I am HERE for it. Nothing represents New York and their hockey team better than the Statue of Liberty across the chest. Their fans have been screaming about this having a come-back for half of a decade now.
5) Anaheim Ducks – The Duck’s “Wild Wing” jersey incorporates one of the most awesome logo’s I’ve ever seen. Their mascot jumping out of the ice speaks for itself, which adds a lot of liveliness to the jersey. I also love how they messed around with their color-scheme to have it relate to their simplicity of their more recent jerseys
COACH
1) Washington Capitals – Because I mean obviously. Screamin’ Eagle is BACKKKK, and so is the Capitol building logo up on the shoulders. I love it so much. Old school mixed with the new colors. Biased? 100 fuckin’ % I am. Take my money, i’ll be gettin’ a Backstrom jersey.
2) Florida Panthers – That’s right I said it. The Florida Panthers. I LOVE this logo, and love the look of this jersey style. The slanted design on the sleeves, the red, white, gold and navy all working so well together. Some straight Olli Jokinen swag right here.
3) San Jose Sharks – These are straight fire and you can’t tell me otherwise. I love a solid gray uni, and the way this blends into the full colored sleeves with that retro feel and poppin’ teal, plus the all black shark just does it for me.
4) St. Louis Blues – I know, it’s a pic of blue unis.. well that’s because the actual ones are above in AB’s section, but here’s what we can kinda expect in terms of how they look on the ice. The red is gonna look 10x better too, I love these.
5) Buffalo Sabres – Ridin’ with AB on these as well. The Sabres jersey are slickkkkk as they come. The light blue and yellow really pops on the white jerz, and the logo use is A1. Hell of a job Buffalo.
BEN
It is now my turn to dive into the best of the best of the Reverse Retro jerseys. Do I love all of them? No, I don’t. Do I hate all of them? No, I don’t. But there are some clean ones that deserve some praise, and I am happy to deliver that phrase. I will probably be stoned to death like a witch for my picks, but that’s the risk I knew I was taking when I entered the blogging game. Sorry, but I’m gonna tell ya how it is
1) Minnesota Wild – This is just so gross looking. Everything about it looks awesome. The green shoulders, the green and yellow striping, even the logo looks good in those colours. They just did it so perfectly in every way, and I am not even the slightest bit surprised. Minnesota has the most slept on colour scheme in the entire NHL, and this jersey adds to my theory that the Minnesota Wild have never had a bad jersey. Except for their first expansion jersey…they do be kinda ugly doe.
2) Los Angeles Kings – I am one of the few people that really like the LA Kings’ current uniforms and logo. They are unique, no other team in the NHL rocks the black, grey and white like the Kings do. However, I also LOVE their original jerseys (except for the crown logo), and I also LOVE their ‘90s jerseys, so these new ones which are a combination of those two look really, really great. My one and only complaint is I wish the logo was mostly yellow with white trim, but still, it looks awesome and is a jersey fit for a king (Wow I am too funny).
3) New York Islanders – I hate the Islanders. Absolutely hate them. Scum from top to bottom. But, I don’t mind their jerseys and I love their jersey pattern. Those two stripes along the bottom? Yeah, give that to me all day. So, the fact that they did their Reverse Retro jerseys as just their current jerseys with a darker shade of blue is lazy, yes, but I also think it just looks good. I base my rankings on the thought of “which jersey would look sick to wear?” In my opinion, the Islanders would be a sick jersey to wear.
4) Washington Capitals – This isn’t even me being biased, these jerseys are just awesome. They grew on me for sure, because I used to not like the Screaming Eagle. Now, after multiple long walks to a river surrounded by the Canadian pine trees and various rocks skipped across the river in thought, I have decided I am a fan and this jersey kicks ass. The updated colour scheme on the older jersey looks really nice, but that font will never 100% sit right with me. And ya know what? That’s just okay.
5) Florida Panters – This is what I like to call a pleasant surprise. This is due to the fact that I didn’t like their older jerseys that looked like this in red. I thought they were very average. For some reason, with blue as the main colour and their unique tint of gold on it, this jersey is vastly improved and I am a big fan. I think this is a great jersey to go along with two of the best in the league that the Panthers already possess with their home and away jerseys. Brett Connolly will look incredibly sharp in these.
Honorable Mention: Colorado Avalanche – Look, I wasn’t alive during the Quebec Nordique years so this jersey doesn’t resonate with me at all. I think the Nordiques jerseys are pretty average with just those little symbols I forget the name of going around the waist. However, I do think the Avalanche re-colourized these jerseys perfectly and made them look pretty sharp. I like the use of blue on the name and numbers. I think it pops and makes the jersey look sharp. Anyways, yeah, it’s just an honourable mention so don’t hang me.
BOBCAT
1) Colorado Avalanche – Anyone that grew up watching hockey in the 90’s remembers legends like Joe Sakic and Peter Forsberg. Two of my personal favorite players to watch growing up. The classic blue Nordique #19 is on my bucket list of jerseys to own. Keeping their own maroon color and adopting the Nordique powder blue is beautiful. Colorado fans now gets to see guys like Mackinon and Makar continue to be in contention for the Hart and Norris trophies for years to come, while hopefully wearing these jerseys for more than a handful of times. Mack did leak pictures of some Nordique colored gloves prior to the jerseys unveiling that compliment this look perfectly. Chefs kiss A++
2) Minnesota Wild – Minnesota hockey fans saw the The North Stars advance to the 91’ Stanley Cup Finals as the 7th seed. They ultimately lost to the Penguins in 6 games. Only to have them moved to Dallas and watch their 88’ 1st overall pick, Mike Modano (you may know his cameo in The Mighty Ducks) blossom and hoist the Stanley Cup a handful of years later. In 2000 we were introduced to the worse color scheme (in my humble opinion) in all professional sports. They are a fairly unremarkable franchise, that has yet to have any sustained pressure or presence in the post season. Just when Wild fans had a Winter Classic to be excited for and potentially a nod to the team they used to root for, we have a pandemic on our hands. The Wild gave Dallas a 27 year overdue. F.U. and said “these are our colors” and put together the most exciting thing the fans have had to look forward to since signing Parise and Sutter. A+ to the State of hockey.
3) San Jose Sharks – Another team that seems to have some tough years ahead of them. However these jersey tickle the nostalgia bone for me. Again being a product of the 90’s I have visions of Owen Nolan rocking the Shark crest. Nothing over the top like you will see from my bottom 5 submissions. Clean, classic, nostalgia riddled, just a shame we wont see Jumbo Joe wear one. 93/100
4) Arizona Coyotes – There appears to be a theme of under performing teams and great executions of Reverse Retro look. Originally, I would’ve like to see a Kachina style re-design but ultimately after introducing that recently I think this design is perfect. The body of the jersey itself is clean, while the banner around the waistline pops with desert imagery. My favorite subtle addition is the lizard patch as a secondary shoulder logo. Now win some games and don’t lose any draft picks next season. 2 thumbs up.
5) St. Louis Blues – After the teasers came out, I blasted the Blues for a terrible choice. I was wrong, for the first time in my life. The contrast of the Blue note resting on the bright red background makes this jersey pop. The shoulder patch trumpet takes the cake for secondary designs as well. While the Blues did add some red outlines to their uniforms in the 80’s this is the first time we will see any variation out different shades of blue or yellow/gold. Gold Star effort STL
STAT GUY BLAKE
1) Washington Capitals – I’m not even gonna pretend to hide my bias for the Screaming Eagle
2) Calgary Flames – The horse breathing fire is dope
3) Colorado Avalanche – The colors are slick and a fleur de Lis makes the whole thing look classy
4) Carolina Hurricanes – Hartford whalers throwback is always a classic
5) Florida Panthers – Always loved the Panther leaping to maul my face.
KP
1) Arizona Coyotes – Screams 90s and GoodTimes, I would love a #81 Kessel thank you very much.
2) Calgary Flames – Fire Breathing Horse Head?? Count me in, this is just a tuff looking jersey man i wouldn’t want to step on the ice to play a team wearing these
3) Los Angeles Kings – These Colors just do it for me
4) Edmonton Oilers – Really like how these colors go on a white jersey. Alex Chiasson is going to look so good in these
5) Buffalo Sabres – Crossed Sabers is a top 5 lock for me again I am a fan of the colors.
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