St. Louis Blues: On The First Day Of Bluesmas 2017

ST. LOUIS, MO - DECEMBER 12: St. Louis Blues right wing Vladimir Tarasenko (91) during a NHL game between the Tampa Bay Lightning and the St. Louis Blues on December 12, 2017, at Scottrade Center, St. Louis, MO. Tampa Bay won, 3-0.(Photo by Keith Gillett/Icon Sportswire via Getty Images)
ST. LOUIS, MO - DECEMBER 12: St. Louis Blues right wing Vladimir Tarasenko (91) during a NHL game between the Tampa Bay Lightning and the St. Louis Blues on December 12, 2017, at Scottrade Center, St. Louis, MO. Tampa Bay won, 3-0.(Photo by Keith Gillett/Icon Sportswire via Getty Images)

It’s that time of year fans. It’s my favorite time of the year what with the lights up everywhere and the crisp air and hockey going in full swing. Time to break out into song.

On the first day of Bluesmas, my true Blue gave to me, an Adidas jersey under my tree! And we’re off with a bang. At least I made the first day rhyme, unlike last year’s version. Don’t expect that to continue though.

Anyway, the St. Louis Blues Adidas jersey is very good. Most of that is because it is almost exactly like the Reebok jersey.

In fact, Adidas did the smart thing and left the vast majority of their new NHL jerseys alone. That’s much better than what we originally expected.

Though I liked the World Cup jerseys, I was afraid we would see what we have seen there and in some of the pregame warmup jerseys. Many of those have the trademark Adidas three stripes down the sides.

St. Louis Blues
ST. LOUIS, MO – DECEMBER 01: St. Louis Blues goalie Carter Hutton (40) wears a special Hockey Fights Cancer warmup jersey with special mask in warmups before a NHL game between the Los Angeles Kings and the St. Louis Blues on December 01, 2017, at Scottrade Center, St. Louis, MO. (Photo by Keith Gillett/Icon Sportswire via Getty Images)

It’s not a terrible look, but it is not that fitting of the NHL right now. We’ve become accustomed to certain styles on NHL sweaters and the three stripes really stick out and not in a good way. As Austin Powers might say, those just ain’t my bag, baby.

Adidas did the smart thing, then, by barely tweaking the look of the existing style. For example, the Blues jersey is almost exactly the same.

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Some of the lines on the shoulders and cuffs are slightly more or less angled, but the overall look is the same. The main difference is the flashy NHL logo on the collarbone and the lone Adidas logo at the base of the neck, which looks perfectly fine.

Most of the other teams in the league did the same thing. You can check out a good comparison look here at coolhockey.com.

The vast majority look the same, with the Adidas ones often taking a lightly slicker edge to them. Mainly just a couple differences with the neck and cuffs though.

The main differing ones are Colorado, who went more back to their look from the team’s inception, Nashville, which got rid of some of the shoulder clutter, and New Jersey. Oddly, the Devils might be the strangest change, since they dropped the bottom stripping all together.

I don’t care for their look much, but a lot of that is I grew up liking Scott Stevens and the Devils of the mid-90’s, so I’m used to them looking a certain way.

Thankfully, the Blues hardly changed a thing. As mentioned, there is less drape to the shoulder striping, but that’s really about it.

Of course, you could go into technicalities and discuss the fabrics and lightness of the sweaters. That doesn’t affect most fans because we don’t need to be extra speedy in these things. If anything, they need to not be tight like the Reebok jerseys because, I’m sorry, but many of you were wearing jerseys that were too small (looking mainly at the guys with guts here).

Next: Blues Are Better Than Even Their Fans Know

Overall, Adidas gets a thumbs up for their first venture into the NHL. They still have plenty of time to mess up things when they come out with third and fourth and who knows how many secondary jerseys.

For now, they’ve done things right. It’s perfectly fine for everyone to want a Blues jersey under their tree and not just because they’re our team. They are good looking jerseys.