NHL And Adidas Unveil Reverse Retro Jerseys For All 31 Teams For 2020-21 Season

The NHL still hasn’t pinned down a plan or a schedule for the 2020-21 season. But players will have some sharp new threads to wear when they step back on the ice.

After teasing the new looks for the last few weeks, the league and its uniform partner, Adidas, unveiled the new ‘Reverse Retro’ designs for all 31 clubs on Monday. Per a media release, it’s the first time in NHL history that all teams have participated together in an alternate jersey program.

The common thread is the inversion of team colors — new takes on classic designs from years gone by. The St. Louis Blues took the bold 1995 jersey design that was worn by the likes of Hockey Hall of Famers Wayne Gretzky, Brett Hull, Al MacInnis and Chris Pronger, and flipped it — defying the team’s name and making red the primary color.

“Hockey fans love retro jerseys and Reverse Retro is a great opportunity for Adidas to work closely with the NHL and all 31 teams to bring back a design from a meaningful point in team history with a unique twist,” said Dan Near, senior director at Adidas Hockey, about the new program.

Some organizations, like the Montreal Canadiens, Detroit Red Wings and Edmonton Oilers, made minor tweaks to iconic looks — which pack a punch. Montreal went to a deep blue for its base color, the Red Wings added a sharp silver stripe to the bottom of their white jerseys, and the Oilers used orange for the yoke and lettering on the white jerseys from their inaugural NHL season in 1979.

Other teams threw up even more imaginative options. The Minnesota Wild blended their current logo with green-and-gold color palette of their predecessors, the Minnesota North Stars, for a jersey that pops. The Winnipeg Jets went a similar route, incorporating the heritage plane crest and ‘Winnipeg’ lettering from the original club’s inaugural NHL season in 1979 into the current color scheme, on a primary color described as ‘fighter grey.’

The New Jersey Devils’ ‘Christmas Tree’ jerseys from their inaugural season in 1982 are legendary. Green was part of the club’s original color palette, emblematic of the Garden State and South Jersey’s Pine Barrens, the purported home of their namesake, the Jersey Devil — who inspired the red. The Reverse Retro look utilizes the same red and green tones as that 1982 original, but goes primarily green for the first time in the franchise’s history.

Will we see the Jersey Devil play a larger role in the team’s marketing efforts going forward? The nefarious Gritty has become a cultural icon in Philadelphia, the mascot in Vegas, Chance, is a gila monster, a venomous lizard, and the Seattle Kraken are weaving eerie legends of the sea into the the storytelling for their expansion franchise — strategies which are resonating well beyond the traditional hockey fan.

“NHL team jerseys have long carried deep historical significance for avid and casual hockey fans,” said Brian Jennings, the NHL’s chief brand officer and senior vice president. “Through the years, the design of each team jersey has evolved to balance history and authenticity with cultural touchpoints. The Reverse Retro program is a celebration of the hockey jersey’s confluence of nostalgia, style and broad appeal.”

Once a schedule for the 2020-21 season is set, each team will wear its Reverse Retro jersey in multiple games, “with special head-to-head matchups featuring exciting and renewed rivalries – both old and new – the league will announce at a later date.”

Reverse Retro jerseys are priced between $180-$225 in the U.S. and $200-$250 in Canada. They’ll be available for purchase Dec. 1 exclusively at adidas.com, adidas.ca, NHLShop.com, NHLShop.ca and team stores, with wider availability at additional retailers starting December 6.