It’s been like this with UD for about 30 years. From what I understood, for the relocated and expansion teams, they’re only allowed to use the full name, and if it can’t fit, they have to use just the city, but this has fluctuated over the years. They originally had to stick with “Carolina”, “Minnesota” and “Phoenix” but have used just the team name at other times since. Nashville is another one like Colorado.
1995-96, they used "Avalanche" in Series 1 then switched to "Colorado" in Series 2
1996-97, they used "Phoenix" (and continued using only "Colorado")
1997-98, they used "Carolina" (and continued using only "Colorado" and "Phoenix")
1998-99, they used "Predators" in Series 1 then switched to "Nashville" in Series 2
1999-00, they used "Thrashers" in both series
2000-01, they used "Thrashers" and "Wild" in Series 1 then switched to "Atlanta" and "Minnesota" in Series 2 ...
...but "Blue Jackets" was used in both series
...and "Colorado Avalanche" was used on the jersey cards while base continued to use "Colorado"
2001-02, the design allowed them to use full team names, but since the Young Guns design didn't have enough room, back to city names again!
2002-03, they were back to using just "Thrashers", "Wild" and "Coyotes" in both series, but they still used "Carolina", "Colorado" and "Nashville"
Even with the exclusive license, they still use "Colorado" on current products. It just comes back to design and having enough room to use the full team name.
* Ed * L8 * Cards in my personal Collection are unavailable *
