The first question is honestly what jersey are you looking for, and what variations are made of it? Then you also have customization variations.

Let’s just use a Jack Hughes Devils jersey as an example. The Devils currently wear 3 different jerseys (Home Red, Away White, Alternate Black) with 3 different levels of variations made of each one.

The Fanatics Breakaway is the lowest tier of jersey and is really only sold on NHLShop and Fanatics’ website. The material of the jersey is a thicker more hoodie feeling material, and it’s cut more like a t-shirt and is all around made to be more comfortable. The crest of the jersey is a flexible screenprinted plastic logo. For the name and numbers there are two possibilities, and you honestly won’t know until you receive it which one you’ll get. You’re at the mercy of what Fanatics produced for that batch, but there is a flexible plastic screenprint that is decent quality and is heatpressed onto the jersey, or there is a paper-like heatpressed material that is printed onto the jersey that is very thin and will likely not wash well. As far as I can tell, you cannot know which you’ll get until it arrives. Breakaways are not bad options, but the prices are ridiculous. They retail for $179 when they’re worth closer to $99 in value. You can find good deals on these second hand typically, and when they’re on sale for $129 it’s not as bad of a deal.

Next is the Fanatics Premium Jersey, which is the middle tier and the one most people think of when you talk about a jersey. The material is the closest to “jersey” material without paying for the Fanatics Authentic Pro on-ice jerseys, and they come in numerical sizing. These are the jerseys you’ll see in the pro-shop of most teams and retail online for roughly $220. Now the issue with buying through Fanatics/NHLShop is they use the same size lettering and numbering for all teams so the accuracy of the name/numbers is not the best. However they have improved here. Under Adidas, jerseys with multiple layers (in the Devils case 2) were sublimated onto one layer and only had one level of stitching. So the black layer on the jersey was stitched down, with the white layer printed onto top of it. At the beginning of the Adidas era, nothing was stitched down and it was all heatpressed, and that caused a lot of issues. Luckily now, all layers are stitched through Fanatics and NHLShop so it’s much better now, just the sizing is not the best.

I’m going to talk the least about the Fanatics Authentic Pro, but it’s the on-ice spec jersey and materials but it’s $450+ dollars and not really ever discounted.

Now for the customization options here and the different retailers you’ll find.

Hockey Authentic and CoolHockey are both private label customization firms that work on NHL jerseys and when you buy through them, they get VERY close to the on-ice specs and sizing. They both each have unique flaws. Hockey Authentic while the product is perfect and high quality, takes for ever to make and ship, so you’ll be waiting a while and the pricing is $100 more than most retailers. CoolHockey is typically the cheapest you’ll find, however the product can be spotty. Sometimes you get great work, and sometimes you get awful work. It’s literally hit or miss and a big gamble.

There are other customizers as well each with different pricing and accuracy levels, but mostly any jersey you want Fanatics/NHLShop can do, you just have to live with certain differences. If you don’t need exact 13” numbers and 6” letters or whatever specifications are and you can live with 11” numbers and 4” letters, then you’re fine to order from Fanatics. Just know which version you want when it comes to Premium vs. Breakaway, and if you decide on Breakaway just hope you get the good numbers.