Today the Buffalo Sabres announced they will be wearing their black “Goathead” uniforms for 15 games during the 2024-25 NHL season.
The uniforms are throwbacks — in 1996, the team began wearing a black and red uniform that had what is affectionately known in Buffalo as the goathead design on the front. This was a radical design departure for a team who had worn only royal blue and gold to that point. They would remain a primarily black and red team until 2007, when they would return to blue (both navy and royal) and gold, and changed up their uniform designs somewhat frequently during those years. But the goathead remained very popular with fans and the team brought it back as a throwback for the 2022-23 season. They also wore it last season.
While a team continuing to wear alternate uniforms isn’t generally big uniform news, this one is. Since the NHL has shifted from adidas to Fanatics as uniform manufacturer from 2024 and beyond, Fanatics had asked teams not to wear alternate uniforms for the 2024-25 season, so this comes as a bit of a surprise. (When adidas took over manufacturing from Reebok, they too asked teams to keep their uniform sets to just a home and road uniform, with the alternate uniforms returning the following year.) So it was expected that teams would simply have two uniforms for this season.
Earlier this year I noted it was possible the Washington Capitals might revive an alternate uniform for the 2024-25 season. In that article, there was a pertinent quote regarding teams adding an alternate uniform for Fanatics’ inaugural season:
Reviving an earlier design is one way I can see a team getting away with adding a new third jersey, with Fanatics asking clubs to hold off on new work while they take the reins from Adidas. If the design and tech pack work has already been done, it saves the production team a lot of time and effort.
Obviously, the Sabres already have a third uniform at the ready (as they’ve worn in the past two seasons). They must have prevailed on Fanatics to continue producing it in order for them to wear the Goathead this coming season. So if the Sabres will have an alternate, and it’s possible Washington will have one as well, will there be additional NHL clubs who have third uniforms going forward? We’ll just have to wait and see.
With that out of the way, here’s a list of games and dates in which the Sabres throwbacks will be worn:
According to the Sabres, they’ll sport the black alternates for all Friday home games, with the uniform making its debut on Saturday, October 26 when the Sabres host the Detroit Red Wings for “Hockey Halloween.”
Not only is the black uni a fan favorite, the Sabres have had good luck wearing the “goathead” jerseys, compiling an 18-7-2 record in the uniform over the last two seasons, scoring five or more goals a total of 14 times in the black and red, including last season’s 7-0 win over Los Angeles on February 13 and 7-2 victory over Vegas on March 2.
Will the Sabres (and perhaps Capitals) be the only team(s) with an alternate this season, or will others follow? We should find out soon enough.
Sabres need to go back to the goat head full time
Blue and yellow unis with the goat head, yes!
They are not a black team, and although it it won’t be a popular opinion, the buffalo with crossing swords is a lame attempt at a logo, that was replaced for a reason!
(althought I’d prefer a new logo. I’m bored of teams just going back to old logos and unis full time. There are enough uni options and throwback nights these days that you can roll out the boring old unis without just lamely making them the primaries at the expense of progress. (also looking at you, Ottawa, Calgary, St Louis, New York Jets etc. etc. ))
Let’s not forget the last time they tried to move to a new logo. The Buffaslug was unleashed on an unsuspecting world.
And it was wonderful. Bring back the slug!
Maybe even black and red slug!
They got their logo right the first time out. No need to change a classic.
This.
Sabres need to go back to the goat head no time!
“the Sabres have had good luck”
Have a look at their playoff drought and tell me how much luck they have. This team can lose in any uniform.
Signed,
A Long-Suffering Sabres Fan
PS – no, they do not need to use these full time.
If the ’99 Stanley Cup finals were “good luck”, I don’t want to know what “bad luck” looks like.
The one thing they have going for them is their current uniform. Sucks they’re trying to mess that up too.
New category? “Teams that can’t decide if they are red and black or blue and yellow”.
Member(s): Buffalo Sabres
Does this qualify for membership?
link
; )
We’re very light on numbers so… why not!
Buffalo teams are also (exclusively?) in the small group where the animal in the logo refers to the city, not team name.
One year, I want the Sabres to do Goathead unis in blue/yellow/white, and their traditional kit in black/red/white. Go full Freaky Friday, without comment, for a full season, then return to the basic set as if nothing ever happened.
God, no. This uniform is uglier than the Berlin Wall.
I have a solution for the Buffalo Sabres use of their uniforms.
For a third of the home games, Buffalo wears the primary classic dark royal blue and gold with the original Buffalo Sabres circle logo with the buffalo and the two sabre swords crossed below.
For another third of the team’s 41 home games, Buffalo Sabres wear the white road version of that blue and gold jersey.
I miss the days teams wore their white jerseys at home.
I have a feeling Commissioner Gary Bettman adamantly refuses to allow NHL teams to wear their whites at home. Like the NBA where Bettman came from, teams wear their primary dark uniforms at home.
Then for another third of a team’s home games, the Buffalo Sabres’ black and red with the goat head is the perfect third jersey or alternate.
Again, will Bettman allow this? Probably not.
The Buffalo Sabres circle logo with the buffalo and the sabre swords crossed below is a classic and one of the all time best logos in the NHL.
I grew up as a Buffalo Sabres fan with the circle logo and totally getting rid of it would be terribly wrong.
Using the three different uniform schemes at home, the Buffalo Sabres can preserve their history in the classic blue and gold and the black and red goat head.
Like the NBA where Bettman came from, teams wear their primary dark uniforms at home.
No, the home team in the NBA chooses which color to wear. The Bulls usually (but not always) wear white at home, for example.
I think the sabres have had a string of logos that are all ALMOST great logos. The concept of a buffalo silhouette over crossed swords has so much potential, but the buffalo not only looks kinda half-assed, but it’s also in a weird kind of torpedo pose that I find odd, not to mention the totally extraneous motion lines. Then they have the “goat head” which is a decent effort but just feels a bit clunky and unrefined to me, plus the switch to red and black was a bad move IMO. The buffaslug makes a valiant effort toward minimalism and stylized abstraction, but it fails to really express a cool or imposing or respectable buffalo visage. The B with the sabre is a great idea in theory but the dynamic position of the B and the typeface are just wonky and ruin the concept. Then they returned to the sabres and silhouette without making any alterations to improve it. I think they could make a few tweaks to any of their logos and have something really decent, but alas.
I was happy when the Buffalo Sabres did change back to the royal blue for their primary jersey. The navy blue wasn’t bad but the royal blue is way better.
I would love if they could bring back the smaller circle logo of the buffalo and the sabres crossed below that used to be on each shoulder. It’s the only thing missing from the team’s current primary blue and gold jersey.
For the black and red goat head jersey I think is very under rated is the B with the Sabre going through it on the shoulders. Really cool.
The Sabres never felt right wearing black and red to me. Have to look at this as glass half full. Better than the infamous “Turdburger” Sabres alts.
“Will the Sabres (and perhaps Capitals) be the only team(s) with an alternate this season, or will others follow?”
Pretty much a guarantee the Canucks are wearing the Black Skate alternates this year. It’s popular. Quinn Hughes is wearing it for the cover of EA Sports NHL 2025.
link
These logos are OK, even the uniform colors are OK but the side panels are a resolute NO with me. Only basketball uniforms are allowed to have side panels on a jersey (and match these on the shorts) but not any other team sports. Looks hideous.
I agree about the side panels on this particular jersey. If they’re going to keep wearing black and red regularly, I think they should update the design.
While discussing if any other teams are wearing alternates next season, the Stars announced they will wear their blackouts 7 times and released their full jersey schedule here – link
This whole design reeks of the 1990s.
BFBS? Check.
Bizarre geometric accents instead of simple stripes? Check.
Cartoonish crest? Check.
Bizarre, marginally legible font? Check.
At one point, the alts had a crest AND wordmark, located toward the hemline.
But they had that one conference win in them, so I guess that matters? They also made the Cup finals in 1975 in vastly superior uniforms, from the color to the stripes to the crest.
Leave this where it belongs, thirty years in the past.
The 70’s jersey design reeks of the 1970s, so the uniform you prefer probably depends on your age.
Not liking how much playtime these red/black unis are getting. Even Sabres players are rallying for this uniform. Sabres fans JUST RECENTLY got their royal blue back after a decade+ fight. Lets not buck that up by letting red & black take back over! Did we all forget how much fans hated this back when it first came out?
Not a Sabres fan, so I don’t have any vested interest in this, but I don’t share the nostalgia here (although it does remind me of watching Hasek in his prime flailing around and doing headstands in the crease on ESPN2). There seems to be an appreciation for these among the fanbase, so I’m happy for them that they get to enjoy it again. I always thought these uniforms were okay, but I like the original blue-and-golds with the stripes and the old logo. I regard those as nearly perfect classics.
The black-red colors and the design are okay in a vacuum, but I see the Sabres as an unfortunate casualty of the design hivemind moving away from “fun, bright, unique” and shifting hard towards “dark, edgy, intimidating.”
The more I look at the logo, the stranger it looks to me. There are all kinds of shapes and lines and details which seem like they should signify something, but it’s all just arbitrary stylistic flourishes. Ditto for the 90s XTREME slashy-stripes. I don’t remember what I thought of these in 1996, but I probably thought they were pretty phat. Now they just seem dated, over-designed, soulless, and desperately trendy. In other words, they’re pretty much the mid-late 90s in a nutshell.
So, they’re not horrible (and as we know, there are worse skeletons in that closet), but it seems like sort of a “subtraction by addition” situation to me (sic).