For the third straight year, the Florida Panthers will represent the NHL’s Eastern Conference in the Stanley Cup Finals. Despite some lean years in the aughts and teens, the team from Sunrise has developed a bit of a legacy in its 32 years in existence.

But we don’t care about what they do on the ice. We care about what they wear on the ice. So let’s talk about the uniforms they’ve worn for those 32 years. I’ll cover the Oilers next week.

1993-2007

When the Panthers first started out, the NHL still wore white at home. Their home jerseys had a red yoke with gold striping, the design coming down to a point on the mid-bicep. That pattern was repeated on the sleeves (with a sort of diagonal look) and lower torso.

While keeping the same overall design, the team darkened the colors, implemented vertically-arched NOBs (dropped in 2006, the season before their next uniform overhaul), and introduced a navy blue alternate in 1998. In 2003, with the NHL switching to color-at-home, the team made the navy alternate its primary home uniform, and demoted the red to alternate. The team also played around with chest crests at this time — originally, the navy alternate featured the panther breaking a hockey stick, while the red and white primaries just featured the cat itself. When promoted to primary home, the hockey stick vanished from the blue jersey but reappeared on the now-alternate red jersey.

All jerseys featured this shoulder patch, depicting a palm tree and hockey stick crossed in front of a sun.

2007-11

*Heavy sigh*. The Reebok Edge era. Or perhaps it should be “error.” Tons of teams used Reebok’s overhaul of the NHL jersey template to experiment, and almost all of it was disastrous. The Panthers are no exception. The team was one of many that introduced piping (which Paul aptly dubbed “apron strings“) with the Reebok Edge jerseys. As you can see on Olli Jokinen, it basically ruined his captain’s C. Both the navy home and white road featured red yokes that went all the way down the sleeves, with stripes on the inner elbow. The palm tree/hockey stick shoulder patch was retained.

In 2009, the Panthers introduced a fauxback alternate, with a roundel logo featuring just the panther head (perhaps a sign of things to come?), powder blue shoulder yokes, lower sleeves, and torso stripes, as well as powder blue socks. A new (worse) shoulder patch came with this look — “FLA” trimmed with two-thirds of a sun.  This is nice enough, but never really felt Panthers-ish.

2011-16

The Panthers dropped the apron strings in 2011, and brought back a red primary jersey (for the first time as a home jersey). While losing the apron strings is welcome, the other issues with this look (the elbow stripes, weirdly long yoke) persist.

The Panthers kept their fauxback alternate through the 2013 season, and have been without an alternate jersey since.

2016-present

After basically two-plus decades of fairly frequent shifts in primaries and alternates and overall designs, the Panthers have (quietly, almost) kept the same design for nearly a decade. A new logo replaced the leaping panther, with just the panther’s head in a military-style crest. A large stripe (gold-white-gold at home, gold-red-gold on the road) travels from behind the crest onto the sleeves, but not onto the back. The wordmark above reads “Panthers” at home and “Florida” on the road. The TV numbers shift to the upper shoulders, while US Army-style patches come down to the bicep, depicting a banner (“Florida” at home and “Panthers” on the road) above a panther on top of the flag of Florida, defaced¹ with a sun motif.

The military look is a nod to owner Vincent Viola’s US Army service — Viola graduated from West Point as an Army Ranger, and was actually the pick to serve as Secretary of the Army during Donald Trump’s first administration. But Viola’s inability to divest from his business holdings (including the Panthers) ended up killing his nomination before a Senate vote.

Reverse Retro

One of Adidas’s best ideas while they were in charge of NHL jerseys was Reverse Retro, and I hope Fanatics brings the concept back. The Panthers’ inaugural Reverse Retro look, from 2021, was basically their home jersey from 2003 to 2007, albeit with a different stripe pattern on the lower torso.

The team and Adidas had more fun with the 2022-23 Reverse Retro look, going full powder blue and bringing back the palm tree/hockey stick logo as the primary jersey crest on a 1993-2006 template. The sun/FLA logo makes a return on the shoulders. There’s not a panther to be found, however.

And you know what? I think this is my favorite, because it’s the most fun. I love the colors, which feel very South Florida, I really dig the palm tree/hockey stick logo, and the template with its pointed shoulder yokes and diagonal sleeve striping is great. I can forgive the lack of panther on this Panthers uni.

But enough from me. What say you?

_{1: For the record, in vexillology, the word “defaced” does not hold a negative connotation.}