Sweaters and hockey have been synonymous with each other since the infancy of the sport. Teams have been identified by their iconic colors and patterns. Some of them are classic while others are classically awful. This summer our annual series focuses on the best and the worst sweaters in each team’s history. Today we have the best and the worst Florida Panthers sweaters in team history.
Florida Panthers Sweaters: The Best and Worst
How We Did It?
We at Last Word on Hockey used a variety of methods to compile this list. Polling came from social media, our writers, and fans. We wanted to get a variety of opinions when we put out our list. This compilation will likely spur debate. However, we wanted to see who had the most memorable sweaters in each team’s history. Let’s put our best foot forward with the best sweaters.
The Best of the Florida Panthers
2023 Reverse Retros
This is one of the best Reverse Retros of the two years they ran the program. We’ll see a few of these as we get deeper into our team-by-team looks.
Florida decided to go with the powder blue base instead of the jet blue that’s in the team colours. The crest is a shoulder patch with the sun, hockey stick, and palm tree on the front.
It’s a risk that there are no Panthers on the uniform, but this just works. Let’s hope the Panthers find a way to get these back into special event sweaters.
The Leaping Cat – Red
Florida came into the league in the 1993 season and presented us with the excellent “Leaping Cat” logo. The club had red and white base jerseys with blue and gold accents.
🚨Mellanby
🍎Whitney
🍏Hedican3-1, Cats! ⏪ Classic #PanthersRewind pic.twitter.com/dmsITFZCti
— Florida Panthers (@FlaPanthers) May 15, 2020
Florida had red sweaters on the road with blue shoulder yokes. There was also navy blue, gold, and white striping on the bottom. These would stay until the year of 2007. If we were to rate them, the home whites are also nice, but the reds just edge them out for a place on the list. Florida made a good first impression on the hockey world with these ones.
The Current Homes
Florida was kind of lost in the wilderness for a number of years. Fan attendance wasn’t the best and the team struggled. However, Vincent Viola purchased the club in 2013 and slowly started to turn things around.
The 2015-16 campaign saw the Leaping Cat put off to the side in favour of a new crest inspired by Viola’s days of being in the 101st Airborne Division of the U.S. Army. This little tidbit brought to you by the great resource of NHL Uniform Database.
Some think the logo looks like something out of the Lion King. However, the team finally has its first Stanley Cup and looked good doing it.
The Worst of the Florida Panthers
Losing Your Edge – Panthers Edition
There are some clubs that had a nice look with the Reebok Edge sweaters. However, there are a number of teams that had some dark times in this era.
A cool cherry on top for Aleksander Barkov’s career as a member of the Florida Panthers is when Opening night comes around.
Barkov will pass Stephen Weiss for most seasons played at 12 seasons.
Breaking another Panthers record while raising a Stanley Cup Banner is decent combo pic.twitter.com/r2dg3anynG
— Armando Velez (@Mandoman12) June 27, 2024
Teams like the Edmonton Oilers had seemingly minimal elements to their sweaters. It felt like the Panthers had a similar setup as Edmonton.
Much like the Oilers, they just had the logo on the front and some unique striping choices. Florida at least had shoulder piping to break it up a little bit.
Navy Alternates
Florida’s first uniform set was well-received, so naturally an alternate was in order. The Panthers always had elements of navy blue in their sweater since its inception.
Some may bemoan the Panthers aggressive colour pallet with all primaries. However, this dark blue is particularly jarring to the eyes.
At least the red and white bases were a smidge better and seemingly worked. The 90s was an odd time for sweaters, but the Panthers’ set was surprisingly subdued.
2021 Reverse Retros
While the second Reverse Retro was an awesome entry, the first one wasn’t very good. Florida did try to use the old Leaping Cat logo on the old jersey template. They put jet blue as their colour and called it a day.
Playing on nostalgia is always a good thing. However, these ones just miss. Florida did a colour swap on these sweats and it was a nice attempt. However, this one pales into comparison to the other Reverse Retro.
Other Considerations
Florida’s current white sweaters deserve some love and have gotten some success since coming into the league.
We got varying opinions on the alternates from 2009 that had baby blue. Some called the sweater basic while others thought it was a nice entry.
Main photo by: Jasen Vinlove-USA TODAY Sports
