NHL set to roll-out 'NBA-ish' league-wide jersey theme next season: report
NHL fans might want to start saving up for a new jersey next season.
With the league set to enter its third season with Fanatics as the official on-ice outfitter, it seems like the NHL wants to put the new partnership to the test. This decade has seen the NHL get ambitious with multiple league-wide jersey initiatives, most notably the two reverse retro campaigns with Adidas in the 2020-21 and 2022-23 seasons.
Edmonton Sports Talk’s Tom Gazzola confirmed earlier this week that the NHL is working with Fanatics on another league-wide jersey theme that will roll out during the 2026-27 season.
“There’s also something cooking for next year league-wide,” Gazzola said. “Remember, they had reverse retro one and two? League-wide theme coming in the next year… totally different [theme from reverse retro].”
Gazzola did not specifically mention what the theme will be. What he did do was write it on a piece of paper and hand it over to his co-host, Dustin Nielson, who revealed a few more clues on what it could be.
Nielson said the idea reminded him of something that has already been done in another professional sports league.
“This sounds a little NBA-ish,” Nielson said after reading the paper.
Describing the new theme as “NBA-ish” seems like an obvious tell of where the NHL might be headed with this mysterious new initiative. Since the 2017-18 season, NBA teams have rolled out “city-edition” jerseys on a nearly annual basis. Those uniforms aim to celebrate a city’s unique culture or identity in a way that primary team uniforms don’t do.
It feels like a good guess that the NHL could be going down the same route, though you would think they would opt for a different title for that kind of theme to avoid copying the NBA completely.
With Gazzola and Nielson being based in the Alberta capital, the duo discussed what this could mean for the Edmonton Oilers. Gazzola mentioned that teams have been presented with options designed by Fanatics, but the Oilers have opted to bring the process in-house, as they disliked the options that were presented.
“The league provided each team with different options,” Gazzola said. “Or they could do the fourth option and say ‘No, no, we’ll bring this in-house’, which [the Oilers have done] because they said the options were pretty bad.”
A new jersey is in the works for next season. Don't know about the colour but have been told it will be a good counter to the faux retro alternate the team started using this year. 4 uniforms for the Oil next year. https://t.co/52ZfKvL3rQ
— Tom Gazzola (@TomGazzola) December 11, 2025
There is still plenty of time to go before fans should expect to see what this means for their respective teams. The 2025-26 season is not even halfway over, and you don’t typically see these types of initiatives announced until the offseason.
Still, it’s a bit of a teaser of what’s to come.