A new NHL season is bringing another fresh look for the Penguins, and this one comes with a league-wide twist. The NHL’s new Hometown Remix alternate jersey program, created in partnership with Fanatics, is set to roll out this season, with designs meant to pull from local culture and team history in the same spirit as the NBA’s City Edition and MLB’s City Connect concepts.
For Pittsburgh, that means another chapter in a long line of alternate uniforms that have piled up fast over the past decade. If you count Stadium Series and Winter Classic sweaters, the Penguins have worn 10 different jerseys since the 2016-17 season.
The club’s standard home and road sets are only the beginning. In 2017, Pittsburgh’s Stadium Series game against the Flyers at Heinz Field produced a yellow jersey with the skating Penguin, but without the golden triangle.
It also carried oversized numbers that echoed the Steelers’ stencil font, plus a “City of Champions” patch built around a Pennsylvania keystone logo. That “City of Champions” mark included five stars to represent the Penguins’ five Stanley Cup championships.
The next season brought a third jersey that borrowed from that look while also reaching back to the gold sweaters Mario Lemieux and the Penguins wore in the 1980s. The letters and numbers matched the regular home and road jerseys, and the shoulders added numbers as well.
Then came another Stadium Series appearance, this time against the Flyers at Lincoln Financial Field in 2019, and with it another one-off uniform. That jersey was black with large gold numbers, letters and striping, with no white at all. It also featured “A GREAT DAY FOR HOCKEY” in block letter stenciling on the back neckline as a tribute to former Penguins coach “Badger” Bob Johnson.
The Retro Reverse program arrived for 2020-21, and Pittsburgh used it to revive a familiar design in a white version never seen before. For the first time since the 1996-97 season, the Penguins wore a jersey with diagonal “PITTSBURGH” text across the chest, while the shoulders swapped out the ’90s-era “Robo Penguin” for the traditional skating Penguin without the golden triangle.
A year later, the black diagonal “PITTSBURGH” jersey returned as a fan favorite in black, serving as the other half of that Retro Reverse look. It nodded to the Penguins’ 1990s road jerseys, the ones made famous by Snoop Dogg in the “Gin and Juice” video, while again replacing the old shoulder logo with the skating Penguin.
Retro Reverse came back again in 2022-23, and this time the Penguins leaned into the “Robo Penguin” itself. The jersey used a black base with a traditional gold shoulder yoke instead of the V-shaped shoulder design from the earlier version.
The Penguins’ 2023 Winter Classic at Fenway Park called for something different, and the team went with a “Pirates”-inspired uniform. The reference, though, was not the MLB club across town.
It was the original NHL team that played in Pittsburgh from 1925 to 1930. The jersey drew from the 1925 NHL Pirates and used a Vintage White base with black and gold details.
Last season’s third jersey introduced yet another new look, this time built around “Penguins Gold.” Its most recognizable feature is a triangle shoulder patch tied to Point State Park, with three river waves, a black monochromatic checker pattern and an igloo to honor the team’s original home. Three black sleeve stripes stand in for Pittsburgh’s three rivers, and the letters and numbers take their cue from the city’s historic trolley car system.
As for the 2025-26 Hometown Remix jersey, details are still thin. There is an unsubstantiated rumor that the base color will be navy blue, a nod to the team’s 1970s uniforms. A team official said the “Penguins Gold” jersey from last season will remain in the rotation this year.
However the next design turns out, the churn is part of the business. New jerseys bring major revenue for the league and the teams that wear them.
CBS News reported that the NHL takes in roughly $30 million to $45 million a year in royalty and licensing revenue from jersey sales, feeding into more than $100 million in broader hockey merchandise sales. And teams can cash in quickly, too: Sports Business Journal reported that last season the Dallas Stars set the league’s all-time single-game, in-arena merchandise record after releasing their highly anticipated alternate jersey.
In Other News...
Penguins Fans May Not Like Dubas Next Step Forward
Kyle Dubas has spent much of this stretch trying to build the Penguins from within, leaning on internal development and a steady stream of low-cost moves rather than swinging for a headline-grabbing trade. That approach has already produced some encouraging signs, with players such as Kaedan Korczak and Declan Carlile fitting the kind of value hunting Pittsburgh has leaned into, while the organization also continues to point to a stronger recent draft haul as part of the long-term plan.
For fans hoping the next step is a return to the kind of blockbuster chase that once defined Dubas summer, this is where the patience test begins. The Penguins are still getting linked to bigger names in rumor season, but the current reality is a team that is not in Stanley Cup favorite territory and appears more likely to keep building carefully than to chase a splash for its own sake. [Read more 🡒]
Pat Verbeek May Be Eyeing A Painful Ducks Cap Move
The summer market for restricted free agents has already taken a few twists, and agent Allan Walsh noted that other Group 2 RFAs have seen offer sheets this offseason, with some eventually settling back in with their original clubs. For the Penguins, the bigger ripple effect may come from Anaheim, where Jaff Marek and David Pagnotta have floated the idea that the Ducks could look to move money off the books and use Pittsburgh as a landing spot to help create cap room.
The names being discussed around that possibility include Frank Vatrano, Alex Killorn and Chris Kreider, with the concept stretching beyond a simple player swap. Anaheim could also need to sweeten the return with draft-pick incentives, including a second-rounder, if it wants a deal to move. For now, though, it remains only chatter around a potential cap maneuver, not a confirmed transaction, which leaves the Penguins watching a situation that could still develop quickly if the Ducks decide they need to act. [Read more 🡒]
Jason Robertson Situation Is Starting To Feel Very Real For Stars Fans
Jason Robertsons status in Dallas has become one of the more intriguing offseason watch points, especially for a Penguins team that is always looking to stay in the conversation when a top-end talent might be available. The Stars winger remains a restricted free agent, and the longer this drags on, the more the situation starts to feel like it could spill beyond a simple contract negotiation.
For Pittsburgh, the appeal is obvious: a player of Robertsons age and production would fit a team trying to balance the present with whatever comes next. The Stars still have room to work through this, but the uncertainty has opened the door to speculation about trade possibilities and outside interest, with other clubs around the league also keeping an eye on how Dallas handles one of its biggest decisions of the summer. [Read more 🡒]