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The Presidents' Trophy is a real honor in the NHL.
Being the best regular-season team means that you overcame adversity and outlasted every other club across the entire league.
But when asked, players and coaches almost always say in unison: "The regular season doesn't mean anything." That is because the only goal of the regular season is always to earn a spot in the playoffs. From there, the ultimate goal is to raise the best trophy in all sports, the Stanley Cup.
After dominating in the regular season, the top clubs are usually heavy favorites to take home the silver chalice.
But it has been a long time since the NHL's best regular-season team won the Stanley Cup.
The Presidents' Trophy, given to the NHL team with the best regular-season record, has been handed out a total of 37 times. Of those, only eight teams have gone on to win the Stanley Cup. The latest? The Chicago Blackhawks in 2012-13.
Since 2000, no Presidents' Trophy-winning team has reached the Stanley Cup Final. The only team to get to the Conference finals was the 2014-15 New York Rangers.
Even worse, six different teams that have won the Trophy over that time have lost in the very first round of the Stanley Cup Playoffs. Up until Sunday, the most shocking was the Tampa Bay Lightning losing in four games to the Columbus Blue Jackets in 2019. But that was overcome on Sunday night.
After getting out to a commanding 3-1 series lead against the Florida Panthers, the record-setting 65-win Boston Bruins lost three straight, including a 4-3 defeat in overtime of Game 7.
Boston looked to be in full control of the series before losing three straight home games, as well as three straight times overall in Games 5, 6, and 7, to a motivated Panthers team.
“The words that come to mind right now are disappointment and confusion," Bruins Coach Jim Montgomery said following Game 7.
Funny enough, the Panthers took home the Presidents' Trophy last season before being swept by the Lightning in the second round.
But after so many occurrences, is it really as unexpected as we make it seem? At this point, questions have to be asked: is the NHL's Presidents' Trophy curse real? And should we expect it to continue?
I think we can all agree...yes. It is very real. And it is not going anywhere.
