Red Wings’ New Jerseys Revealed

The National Hockey League unveiled its new adidas-made jerseys in Las Vegas on Tuesday night.  As expected, there weren’t significant changes for the Red Wings.

Only home jerseys were unveiled but given the lack of change for Detroit’s red jersey, it’s safe to assume that the white jersey will remain similarly untouched.

With the shift to the adidas “AdiZero” template, materials of the jersey will change, as will the position of some seams.  This is most noticeable in the shoulders and collar area.

I speculated when a jersey preview was released last week that the Red Wings would be changing to a a sewn-on nameplate instead of individually-sewn letters.  It turns out that this nameplate was just for demonstration and the game jerseys will not include it.  Either way, the Wings will be keeping their vertically-arched names.

It appears as though the bottom stripe has changed a little.  It now follows the curved hem of the jersey at a constant width.  In the now-defunct Reebok Edge jersey template, the stripe was straight across the top, effectively changing width with the curve of the hem.  Prior to the Edge design, NHL jerseys had a straight hem so both the top and bottom of the stripe were straight.

One remaining question was the placement of the captains’ letters.  Per SportsLogos.Net founder Chris Creamer, who was on hand at the unveiling, the Red Wings will keep their letters on the right-hand side of the chest, opposite most of the league.

As the AdiZero template features a more squared shoulder than the Edge template, the contrasting-color shoulders of the Red Wings’ road jerseys could be in for a slight change.  That said, the Pittsburgh Penguins’ jerseys have translated the same effect to the new template.

Update, 10:45 PM: The Red Wings were quick to tweet out photos of their road white jersey.

They’re red and white, white with red stripe. #MyAdidas #FormTheFuture #LGRW pic.twitter.com/eouIs8oVP1

— Detroit Red Wings (@DetroitRedWings) June 21, 2017

This seems to confirm that the distinctive shoulders will remain. Additionally, the red waist stripe, like the white stripe on the home jersey, follows the curve of the hem rather than appearing straight.  Finally, the team is utilizing a thick, red collar rather than the thinner collar some teams opted for.

Update, 6/21 12:30 AM: Creamer confirms that the Red Wings’ game jerseys will not feature the nameplate shown during the jersey unveiling.  The nameplate was just there for demonstration.