Adidas Releases New Predators Jersey

Today marks the first day that teams wear Adidas-crafted uniforms. With the change from Reebok to Adidas comes new sweater designs for some teams, including the Nashville Predators. While the official announcement has yet to come, here are the leaked sweaters:

Let’s take a look at what Adidas got right and what they got wrong for Nashville.

The Good

The logos, namely the primary saber toothed tiger and the guitar pick secondary logo, were left unchanged. Furthermore, “Nashville” is still written on the back collar, the keyboard is on the inside collar, and the guitar strings still go through the numbers. The tributes to the music culture of, well, Music City were phenomenal details on the last sweater that helped endear them to fans.

Furthermore, some of the extra navy piping that cluttered the sweaters were removed. For example, there used to be a navy panel above the names on the back. That was taken out and it makes for a much cleaner look.

Also, although I doubt it was ever in question, keeping gold as the primary color was a must. Adidas and Nashville did a good job keeping it.

The Bad (And the Ugly).

Yeesh, those collars are not attractive in the front. With the World Cup of Hockey, there was already a general idea of how collars would be made under Adidas. The verdict? Not good. What will it take for the Predators to get a collar with laces in front?

Additionally, they just look bland. There are ways to add to a sweater without making it look cluttered. How about adding an additional stripe on each sleeve and reducing the amount of navy by the ends of the arms? Team Sweden’s sweaters will always be the gold standard (pun intended) and show how a sweater should be done right.

The sleeves and the bottom of the sweater have a host of problems. The white stripes can barely be seen squished between the navy and the gold. It makes for a bizarre look. The old sweaters did this better by having the white stripe within the navy.

Finally, there should be some symmetry with the ends of the sleeves and the bottom of the sweater. That was present on the last sweater, but not on this one. The navy at the bottom of the sweater does not extend nearly as far up as the navy on the sleeves do. It extenuates how bland the rest of the sweater is.

Grade: D+

Give Adidas credit where it’s due: they took out a lot of the unnecessary clutter in the sweater. With the removal of the extra piping, they made a cleaner look.

Too clean.

It feels like a high school english student received a paper back with corrections, simply removed everything wrong and made no revisions. The Predators’ sweaters, although free from the extra piping, look so incredibly boring. It feels like a two-tone long sleeve shirt. Furthermore, the collar is simply atrocious. How hard is it to make a sweater with a laced collar?

Because of these factors, I think these may be up there with the infamous mustard yellow third sweaters as the ugliest sweaters in Nashville Predators history.

What are your thoughts on the Predators’ new sweaters?