Re-Ranking the Best NHL Heritage Classic Jerseys Ahead of Canadiens-Jets Game

While the United States gets to have the Winter Classic, Canada's NHL fans get to revel in the Heritage Classic for all the joy of outdoor hockey fans and players alike can handle.

Sunday's matchup in Winnipeg between the Winnipeg Jets and Canadiens marks the eighth Heritage Classic in league history and with it comes all of the classic Canadian joy and history we love to see from events like this and that includes special throwback style jerseys.

All seven Canadian teams as well as the honorary eighth Canadian team, the Buffalo Sabres, have played in the event and they've all brought their own kinds of style outdoors for the Heritage Classic. We're going to rank them even though many of them have become current home or road jerseys now and even though many of those are beautiful, we're giving bonus points out for doing things a little different, especially for more recent games.

On the one hand, it was awesome to see the Maple Leafs go deep into their history for the 2022 Heritage Classic in Hamilton, Ontario. Before the Leafs were born, there were the Toronto Arenas from 1917 to 1919 and this jersey was directly inspired by what that team wore way back when.

On the other hand, Leafs jerseys are outstanding and incredible and while we get what they were doing with these, they're so subdued and almost too simplistic for what's supposed to be a huge event. At least their matchup against Buffalo had some classic scraps and snowfall during the game to make it stand out.

The Canadiens matchup in Calgary in 2011's Heritage Classic was further proof that while the Habs have the perfect jerseys, it wouldn't hurt to have a few really old throwback styles in their back pocket for big events.

Montréal wore what were essentially their regular road white sweaters for the game and while those are phenomenal jerseys... it's like rolling into a Black-Tie event in regular nice clothes. Then again, since this was the second ever Heritage Classic, we could give them a pass had Calgary not gone so historically hard for their jerseys.

The 2003 Heritage Classic was the first big-time NHL game played outside and even though so much of the event had all the bells and whistles that most outdoor games have had since then, there wasn't a definitive ideal of how to do things in an old-school way.

So when the Canadiens showed up wearing their standard classic red jerseys, it made a ton of sense. It's a perfect jersey, it's hockey being played outside in obscenely cold weather, and they're matched up against the Edmonton Oilers who were able to break out their own throwbacks to help make the game look good.

It might not seem like a big deal now that the Oilers wore their 80s throwbacks for the first Heritage Classic, but at the time it was. Not only did that event feature an alumni game the day before that featured countless Hall of Fame players, but the game being in Edmonton was the right time to do a throwback jersey for a special event game.

The Oilers had last worn these white 80s style jerseys in 1997, and their current home and road set was going in a different, albeit still good but not as great, direction. Seeing these beauties back under the lights at Commonwealth Stadium in frigid conditions just hit right. It wouldn't be until 2011 that these jerseys came back full-time to stay, but on this night? It was the perfect time.

For all the walking back we did for Calgary's 2023 Heritage Classic jerseys, it's a little harder for us to do the same with Edmonton's but dang it if the color scheme doesn't crush it.

We still don't like the ribbon with the team name, but we do like the oil drop with the player number in it. But mostly we're big fans of the blue jersey with the orange and white striping and shoulders. It's got an old-fashioned feel to it and while it's definitely trying really hard to sell that point, it's unique in a mostly positive way and we're trying to be less negative these days.

Still, when you've got regular jerseys that crush it night after night the way the Oilers do, going away from that almost always means there's a downgrade.

At the time the jerseys were released for the 2023 Heritage Classic, we were pretty harsh on them because, boy, they were trying pretty hard to be old school for both the Flames and Oilers. Time heals most wounds though and we can feel a little bit better about Calgary's sweaters now.

The circular style logo was overdone years ago and encasing the Flames' logo like that goes against the nature of beauty, but with the way the rest of the jersey is designed, we get it better now. The vintage white with the red shoulders and stripes on the sleeves are fine.

Instead of being outright haters of this, we've settled down and think these are perfectly cromulent jerseys instead.

The Sabres became the first U.S. team to play in the Heritage Classic in 2022 and to celebrate that, they didn't really mess with a good thing at all apart from one obvious distinction.

The Sabres kept their perfect logo along with blue, gold and white stripes and instead of a regular white jersey, they used a vintage, cream white instead. They also ditched the blue and gold shoulder yoke for the game because that's a bit too modern for a throwback-style look. It's a great, clean looking jersey and for an event that was meant for the Leafs to stomp on their American neighbors, the Sabres won 5-2 in Hamilton instead and provided this very meme-y photo of now former Sabres forward Dylan Cozens.

The Canadiens history of jerseys doesn't exactly allow for a lot of different looks and frankly, that's totally fine because why mess with perfection, right?

What the Habs are doing for the Heritage Classic this season is interesting because it calls back to the 1920s and 1930s but also serves as a nod to 1991-1992 when they broke out this particular jersey in celebration of the NHL's 75th anniversary that season.

The classic logo on the red sweater with blue and white stripes is as iconic as it gets, but the blue stripe on the left sleeve also gets a small version of the Canadiens logo embedded in it as well. The number and name fonts are modernized which gives it a new twist of sorts, but it's still as classic of a look as you get with the Canadiens.

These dark blue beauties from the Winnipeg Jets days before joining the NHL were a great choice for the team in the 2019 Heritage Classic matchup against Calgary. The Jets logo from back in the day is a real product of the era given how similar in style it is to the Edmonton Oilers and New York Islanders in ways and throwing it on the front of a jersey is a great way to make it memorable.

The Jets liked wearing these for the Heritage Classic so much they made it their alternate jersey in 2021 and every time we see them, we want to see more jerseys like them because we're suckers for nostalgia in the best way.

No, we're not cheating here by doubling up teams, it's just that the Winnipeg Jets jerseys they're wearing for this year's Heritage Classic are the same that they wore for the 2016 Heritage Classic as well. Look!

It's somewhat fitting the Jets are doing this because they're hosting the event this season and have spent the past couple of days bringing back Jets players from their recent past including Dustin Byfuglien, Blake Wheeler and more. There was also an alumni game against Canadiens alums on Saturday night.

But these jerseys? They're great and also the white version of the dark blue alternates the team wears during the season that they also wore during the 2019 Heritage Classic.

For the 2019 Heritage Classic, the Flames made everything old new again by breaking out their former home white sweaters from the 80s and 90s. They were already wearing their red ones as an alternate at home by this point, but the white ones were left in the past...until this game.

As great as their red sweaters are, the white jerseys pop just as hard. The logo stands out brighter and the stripes and shoulder are so, so good. Bringing back these classics in 2019 got fans excited to see them more often and the team did that in 2021 on a full-time basis and continues to wear them now. They're also one of our most favorite road sweaters in the league.

When the Senators and Canucks squared off in 2014's Heritage Classic, it gave Ottawa the opportunity to flip their current alternate jersey, a vintage style black jersey with a large "O" as the crest and make it vintage white.

The Sens alternate of this time frame was excellent and the nods it provided to the original Ottawa Senators of the early 1900s were great. From the black and red stripes and simple logo, it was an ideal alternate look. That they took it and made it a white road jersey for the Heritage Classic might sound lazy, but when you saw it in full display, it was anything but that.

The one big downer with these jerseys is that we saw them for this event and almost never again. Too bad.

If you memory holed something about the Oilers from the first few seasons of Connor McDavid taking over the NHL, forgetting that they wore these orange alternate jerseys for two seasons and then made them their home jerseys for five more years after that would almost be understandable.

Seeing them now after not seeing them for multiple years makes us remember how nice they were as an alternate jersey. After all, these jerseys were like what the team wore for the first two years of its existence in the WHA and when they made it their jersey for the 2016 Heritage Classic... it was already their alternate jersey and had been around for a season. Sigh.

Looking back without that information, this jersey was an incredible choice to wear for the game. But having those facts really makes it seem like such a letdown. Still, a great looking jersey deserves credit, and this is definitely one.

The 2014 Heritage Classic might be more memorable for being played indoors at BC Place or for then Canucks coach John Tortorella starting Cory Schneider instead of Roberto Luongo, but it should be best remembered for Vancouver breaking out the striped "V" of the Vancouver Millionaires.

The Millionaires existed from 1911 to 1926 and the uniforms the Canucks wore for the Heritage Classic were directly designed from those teams. The Millionaires were Stanley Cup champions in 1915 and if you're going to host a big-time event in Vancouver, paying homage to the original champions of the city was a great way to do it.

The maroon and cream striped sleeves and the giant "V" crest with "Vancouver" spelled out in it were incredible to see. If there's a downside it's that the jerseys weren't actually wool, but we're going to give that a pass for a few reasons. Whenever the Canucks get back to a Heritage Classic (or maybe a Winter Classic...) they've got plenty from their own history to bring back to life, but for the first one, we're more than happy they went way back into history.

The Flames logo is perfect. The Flames colors of red and gold are also perfect for hockey, especially when your team's name has to do with fire. Given the Flames' limited history of throwback jerseys in 2011 and needing to have something old-timey for hosting the Heritage Classic, they threw it back to a really old-fashioned style of jersey and went wild with the stripes.

Stripes on the jersey and even more stripes up and down the sleeves all in red and gold. They're glorious and incredible and every team has been playing for second in trying to make it look good outdoors when trying to look like a team from a century ago.