Today, Paul Lukas of Uni-Watch tweeted out a leaked image of a new Florida Panthers logo. The logo follows the same formula as what wrote about back in January, a military badge style shield (modelled after that of the 101st Airborne) containing a panther head and the team name arched over the top.

While I hadn’t seen the new Panthers logo with my own eyes before today, I’ve since checked with more than one of my always reliable sources and can confirm that the image in Paul’s tweet is indeed the new Panthers logo for next season.

CONFIRMED: @sportslogosnet says 2 of his sources have confirmed that this is indeed the Florida Panthers’ new logo. pic.twitter.com/cMLgEeKGkz — Paul Lukas (@UniWatch) April 26, 2016

The logo you see at the very top of this post is the same graphic as from the tweet but has been slightly cleaned up by myself and Twitter user @TroyConcepts, a larger version of it below:

Despite appearing like a shoulder patch or alternate logo, this is the new primary logo, it will appear on the front of the new Florida Panthers jerseys with a horizontal stripe across the chest Montreal Canadiens style, which we also tried to replicate in the image at the top of the post. The alternate mark (not seen) features a prowling panther above a modified flag of the State of Florida.

This would be the first major logo change in the nearly quarter-century history of the Florida Panthers franchise, aside from a slight change to the colours the Panthers have used the same primary logo since their inaugural season of 1993-94. The team has gone through several uniform changes, however, one of the teams who “changed for the sake of change” during the league-wide transition to the Reebok Edge uniform style in 2007.

No word on when the logo and uniforms will be officially unveiled, and I doubt the team wants to talk about it much right now (having just been eliminated from the playoffs), but worth noting that new uniforms are almost always unveiled officially on or around NHL Draft day — this year that would be on Friday, June 24th.