The Nashville Predators and Tampa Bay Lightning both unveiled their 2022 Stadium Series jerseys tonight within about ten minutes of one another, and while the Preds jersey was expected today (though originally an hour later), the Lightning jersey came right out of nowhere, much like a bolt from the sky.
As always, the NHL’s annual outdoor Stadium Series game shoves aside the thinking that a hockey sweater’s design must be steeped in tradition, forcing us to try something new even if it makes us feel a little uncomfortable. The 2022 edition, to be held in Nashville is, of course, no different.
Starting with the host Predators who will be going with a navy blue jersey complete with a gold horizontal band across the front of the chest and around each arm. On this gold bar is the team’s SMASHVILLE nickname stacked in big blue lettering, appropriately smashed together in some places. Laid on top of this is the team’s usual alternate logo, a guitar pick with the three stars from the Tennessee state flag upon it. On the sleeves there’s a single, very large gold stripe with the player’s numbers in single-colour blue within in that extra large Stadium Series style.
The inside back collar contains the Predators primary logo, simplified to remove the gold details from within the sabre-toothed tiger’s face, the outside back collar reads “PREDS” in gold. Player numbers are single colour white, player names are single colour gold.
Their opponents from Tampa Bay are doing a little digging into their past for this one, though on a much more modern template. Coming back is the “BOLTS” diagonal lettering that we saw on various blue and black third jerseys between 2008 and 2017 — the typeface, colours, and style of this have all been updated with the striping at the bottom resembling a large blue lightning bolt turned onto its side (as my good friend Clark Rasumussen noted, this lightning strip does give off a little bit of a Team Canada ’87 vibe).
The left shoulder is a re-coloured version of their usual shoulder patch, a roundel style design with TAMPA BAY LIGHTNING HOCKEY CLUB wrapped around their primary mark. The opposite shoulder houses a 2022 Stadium Series patch.
Some more shots of both the new Predators and Lighnting 2022 Stadium Series jerseys below, we’ll add more to this once more photos and information on the designs is made available:
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