Monday’s FTB: The Maple Leafs retro jerseys show they didn’t have much choice

© Photo by Focus on Sport/Getty Images We better get a player wearing some retro hair when these jerseys get worn.

Good morning Toronto Maple Leafs fans and fellow jersey watchers!

Is it really a good morning though?

First of all, most of us in Southern Ontario are recovering from a wicked wind storm that saw wind gusts that would get their cars impounded on the QEW. Second of all, we had this dropped on us from the Maple Leafs yesterday:

The Maple Leafs part of this “reverse retro” series being put out by Adidas is inspired by the 1970 Leafs jersey featured in our header image, but is swapping the white for grey, which….why?

I’ve always liked this jersey for its simplicity, and to be honest, the Maple Leafs didn’t have much to choose from. They’ve done the Arenas already, and have two different St. Pats jerseys (neither of which are good). Their Winter Classic against the Red Wings in Ann Arbour was cluttered and messy. The only other choice could have been the blue shoulder yoke thirds, and they were too recent to be considered “retro”.

The Leafs jersey history isn’t stellar, most of them could fall into the “act like you’ve been there before” attitude, and have stayed “classic” and “clean” for most of the teams history.

Except that one season the lettering was red on the Leaf, that was wild and crazy.

With the “Reverse Retro” jerseys being unveiled soon, the fantastic crew over at Icethetics have made mock ups about what they think the jerseys could be, and they’re usually on the ball with these things. First, let’s gander at the Pacific:

In order from left to right, top to bottom:

Amazing, fantastic, meh, ugly, fine, bleh, great, okay.

Wild Wing?! Wild Wing is coming back, are you kidding me?! This and the Canucks going back to a gradient helps confirm my opinion that the 90’s third jerseys were amazing is correct.

Now, the central:

Again: Bland, fine, good, meh, bad, awesome, ugly.

The Stars went with what they won the cup in, and that’s okay but they should have followed in the Ducks webbed footprints and brought back the Mooterus, or gone with a California Golden Seals cover. Or even better, gone with a North Stars theme to spite the Wild. the Blues jersey surprised me with how much I enjoy it.

The Metro:

So I rank these as “Get over the Whalers already”, good, very good, why no Fisherman?, Great, fine, bad, surprisingly great.

Seriously, get over the Whalers.

Finally, the best division, the Atlantic:

Boring, great, awful, meh, sadly amazing, great(?), an abomination, fine.

I hate that I’m complimenting the Sabres, Senators, and Canadiens, but damn those are good jerseys. The Bruins are wearing a Bruins jersey, those Detroit jerseys are absolute garbage, and WHY ARE THE LIGHTNING NOT WEARING THE STORM JERSEYS?

WHY?

LOOK AT THEM:

I am officially done with this “retro” nonsense if teams are going to ignore their past.

In other news the USHL is postponing games because “minimum standards” could not be met, wink wink.

I’m sorry, I know we shouldn’t share clickbait, but what the hell?

Retool? Retool? Now? In this economy?

The Jets* retro should have been based off the Thrashers baby blue jersey:

Enjoy your day everyone!