The NHL’s new Hometown Remix jerseys have not exactly come out swinging.
The league rolled out the alternate sweaters for all 32 teams on Monday, with each design meant to nod to something tied to one of the NHL’s 30 cities. But the early returns on the ice have been rough, and if there’s any magic in these looks, it hasn’t shown up yet.
The first three teams to wear them - the Florida Panthers, Chicago Blackhawks and San Jose Sharks - all lost. Florida fell 5-3 to the Detroit Red Wings, Chicago got rolled 5-2 by the Colorado Avalanche, and San Jose dropped a 2-1 game to the Calgary Flames.
The next wave didn’t help the case much either.
The Montreal Canadiens, Pittsburgh Penguins and Columbus Blue Jackets all wore their Hometown Remix jerseys in home games, and only one of those three teams managed to win. Montreal jumped out to a 4-0 lead on a Winnipeg Jets team that has gone 0-7-2 since starting the season 4-1-1, but the Canadiens somehow gave it away in the final three minutes of the third period and lost 5-4. The collapse brought back bad memories for Habs fans, especially after the team’s ugly run in its Reverse Retro jerseys, when it won only one game in those 2022-23 uniforms.
The Canadiens’ numbers in non-standard jerseys are downright grim: 14-26-5 overall, a .311 win percentage. Their breakdown looks like this:
Throwback White (06-07): 6-7-1
Centennial (08-10): 3-6-1
Reverse Retro 1 (20-21): 1-5-1
Reverse Retro 2 (22-23): 1-6-1
Hometown Remix (26-27): 0-0-1
One-offs (03-26): 3-2-0
Elsewhere, the Penguins fell 3-2 to the Vegas Golden Knights, while the Blue Jackets were the exception to the trend, blasting the Colorado Avalanche 7-2. To round out the picture, the Buffalo Sabres also lost 2-1 to the Ottawa Senators.
That leaves the first seven Hometown Remix appearances at 1-6-0, a start that isn’t exactly inspiring for the Edmonton Oilers, who are set to debut their alternates Thursday at home against the Anaheim Ducks.
And the timing matters. Edmonton had strung together three straight wins before a 4-3 shootout loss to the New Jersey Devils, and the standings are tight enough that every point counts. With 11 teams separated by just six points near the top of the NHL, any stumble could matter in the race for a top finish.
So Thursday’s game is worth watching for more than just the jerseys. If the Oilers can dodge the Hometown Remix curse, they’ll at least have done something the early adopters haven’t: turn the new look into a win.
In Other News...
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Connor McDavid took a heavy hit at Rogers Place and, as often happens when the Oilers captain gets roughed up, the temperature in the building rose fast. Edmonton was already in a chippy game against Anaheim, with penalties piling up and bodies finishing every play, and Evan Bouchards power-play goal late in the first period had already helped steady things on the scoreboard.
The hit on McDavid set off the kind of reaction the Oilers have been trying to channel all season, with Vasily Podkolzin jumping into the scrum and the officials sorting through the aftermath. Edmontons frustration was obvious as the physical play kept building, and the sequence left the Oilers facing the kind of discipline questions and emotional fallout that can linger well beyond one shift. [Read more 🡒]
Oilers Fans Have Every Reason To Be Furious Over This Call
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For Oilers fans, the frustration goes beyond a single whistle. The league has long wrestled with inconsistent standards on fighting and supplemental discipline, and this was another example of how murky those calls can feel in real time. The Aggressor Rule has been floated as a cleaner way to handle situations like this, but for now Edmonton is left with the same old complaint: too often, nobody seems to know exactly what the punishment should be until after the damage is done. [Read more 🡒]
Oilers Let A Winnable Game Slip Away In Frustrating Ducks Loss
The Oilers had plenty of chances to put this one away, but a penalty-filled night in Anaheim kept turning the game into a special-teams grind instead of a clean five-on-five test. Edmonton still got a strong offensive push, scoring twice on the power play and killing off five of seven Ducks advantages, yet it was not enough to leave with points in a 5-4 loss that dropped the club to 11-3-3.
Connor McDavid was again at the center of everything, driving the attack and extending his point streak to 17 games with a goal and three assists. Even with that kind of production, the Oilers could not fully cash in on a winnable matchup, and the frustration only grew as the game tilted further away from the kind of composed finish Edmonton needed. [Read more 🡒]