Ryan Miller has looked sharp lately. Tuesday night at Madison Square Garden, Miller made 46 saves, backstopping the Canucks to an otherwise wholly undeserved survivor point. Two nights prior, he made 47 saves to steal both points outright. One wonders if it's possible for him to look better than this.
The answer is yes, and I can even tell you when it'll happen: Saturday, February 13th, when the Canucks play host to the Toronto Maple Leafs wearing their mid-90s era retro black skate jerseys as part of the Rogers Arena 20th anniversary celebration. Miller's special-order equipment for the Hockey Night in Canada telecast has hit the Internet, and let me be the first to say: damn. (Well. First in this context. It's a pretty old swear.)
Miller's mask was the first to leak. That happened about a month ago. Here it is, courtesy Johnny Canuck.
Skates will fly soon. Beauty by @BishopDesigns for @RyanMiller3039 pic.twitter.com/qSzFTVSsAK
— Johnny Canuck (@iamjohnnycanuck) January 4, 2016
Here's the blocker and glove, courtesy Brent Woods.
Ah, black and yellow. Personal anecdote: when I was eight, a family friend gave me a Canucks [root] beer mug full of jelly jeans in mid-90s Canucks colours. It was an unfortunate gift, since I can assure you that to most eight-year-olds, myself included, the black jelly beans taste like death. But, as it was nevertheless candy, I ate every heinous black licorice jelly bean in that mug. Anyway. Let's move on. Here are the pads:
Now, I guess we don't know for sure that these are Miller's pads. Brent Woods only has five Instagram posts, for instance. But when you consider that all his equipment tends to be Vaughn Hockey, and these pads are Vaughn Hockey -- and show up reblogged on the company's Instagram page as well -- I think it's a pretty safe bet. Just like it's a safe bet that Miller will be the sharpest-looking goalie in the house next month if these are the real deal.
But wait! There's more! If you think you're going to have to wait until February 13th to see the whole ensemble, think again, because I totally have photo editing software.
Maybe not my best work. But I'll bet you it still fools tons of people on Twitter. Some of those people aren't very smart.
Meanwhile, Jacob Markstrom's more minimalist look hit the internet via Snapchat a while back and frenemy-of-the-blog Wyatt Arndt dug it up:
Markstrom going for the Darth Vader 94 approach: (stick tap to my goalie @ThomasDouglas30 for finding this for me) pic.twitter.com/9GU6yBXXjn
— Wyatt Arndt (@TheStanchion) January 21, 2016
I like the look, but not enough to do a terrible photoshop of it. What do you guys think?
