For the Boston Bruins, it’s sunshine and bear attacks. For the Tampa Bay Lightning, it’s weather patterns and pirates.
On Feb. 1, 2026 at Raymond James Stadium — home of the NFL’s Tampa Bay Buccaneers — it’s two more jerseys in the tradition of the NHL Stadium Series’ bold design choices.
“They really capture what the Stadium Series is about: taking chances, leaning in, designing toward the future of the game and having fun doing it,” said Dom Fillion, creative director for Fanatics.
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The Bruins are playing in their sixth NHL outdoor game, while the Lightning are playing in their second. The Bolts’ font and “stair step” design on the front reference their first outdoor game sweaters worn in Nashville in 2022.
Since the Stadium Series is being held at the home of the Buccaneers — and during Tampa’s Gasparilla festival — there’s pirate inspiration found throughout the Lightning jersey.
The jerseys feature a new patch logo for the Lightning on the shoulder. It’s a crest with the team’s name wrapped around a white skull with a lightning bolt on its head — a little Ziggy Stardust, a little Jolly Roger — and two pirate sabers crossed at the bottom. Fillion said the Lightning have done variations of skull logos before on fan jerseys, but this custom art logo is the first time they’ll wear one on a game jersey.
Like Mardi Gras, the Gasparilla festival has become synonymous with the wearing (and throwing) of plastic beads. While Fanatics wouldn’t explicitly cite Gasparilla as an inspiration, there are blue and white strands of “pirate beads” inside the collar of the Stadium Series jersey.
The “pirate beads” are also found on the embossing within the light blue stripes around the waist and the arms of the sweater. They connect the team’s “Bolt for Life” logo with the lightning bolt skull found on the shoulder patch, which Fanatics said is meant to “recognize the team’s season ticket base.”
As they do on every specialty jersey, there’s a small patch on the back of the sweater as an “Easter Egg” for fans. On these Lightning jerseys, it’s a tattered Lightning logo flag that looks as if it could have been been raised on a pirate ship.
These jerseys introduce a new shade of blue into the team’s color palette, which honors their traditional team hues while acknowledging the outdoor game held in the Sunshine State.
It’s within that new sky-blue tone that the jerseys have their other big innovation: an actual representation of lightning on a Lightning jersey.
This isn’t the first time that has been attempted. Their alternate jerseys from the 1990s had cartoon lightning bolts down the sleeves, a look that was revived in their 2022 “Reverse Retro” jerseys. But this photo-realistic lightning in the letters and the numbers is a first for Tampa Bay, and a design element that was painstakingly tested.
Fillion said his team worked with digital artists and their factory to make sure they had the right materials and colors to execute the concept. Artists crafted each “vein” of lightning to make sure it was the right width, location and that there was the right amount of it on the jerseys. The sky-blue color and the coloring on the bolts themselves was tweaked to ensure they would pop, according to Fillion.
“It’s all part of why people think we might be a little bit crazy within the design space, but being obsessed about the details ultimately makes a difference,” he said.
THE 2026 NHL STADIUM SERIES JERSEYS HAVE ARRIVED 🏟️
Which one do you like better? 🤔 pic.twitter.com/rzhH90LnRE
— ESPN (@espn) December 12, 2025
Color choice was also the most important part of the Bruins’ Stadium Series jersey, which introduces a much brighter and vibrant shade of gold for the team.
Like for the Lightning, Fanatics created a new logo for the Bruins on their shoulders: The letter “B” with five claw marks scratched around it. The claw mark motif is also found on Boston’s pants and helmets.
The crest of the jersey features the “Bruins” bear shoulder patch that was introduced this season and the word “Boston” in the front — a homage to their jerseys from the 1920s that incorporated both the city name and nickname for the team.
Another design element for this Bruins jersey is a nod to playing an outdoor game in Florida: an embossed sunburst pattern on the sleeves, which is also found on the “Easter Egg” tag on the back of the sweater.
Finally, the Bruins jersey also has a design element in the collar that might not make Hartford Whalers nostalgists happy. The acronyms of the six states that make up New England, including Connecticut.
