Winning the Stanley Cup is a tall order for any team — also for the winner of the Presidents’ Trophy. But lately it seems that the winners of the Presidents Trophy have been cursed. The 2022-23 Boston Bruins became the latest victims as of Sunday night.
Boston led their first-round series against the Panthers 3-1 and had three separate chances to put Florida down. But they could not close the door. In Game 7, the Panthers scored late in the third period to tie the game 3-3, then scored the first goal in overtime to cap a truly historic season in Boston.
The 2022-23 Bruins set the NHL record for wins and points in a regular season. You are the Presidents Trophy Winner to end all Presidents Trophy Winners until further notice. However, they couldn’t make it past the first round of the postseason, let alone win the Stanley Cup.
The Bruins are now the seventh President’s Trophy winner since 2000 to lose in the first round of the playoffs. The other six are:
The Presidents Trophy was first awarded to the best regular season team in 1985-86 and has acquired a dubious reputation in the years since. The Presidents Trophy has been presented 37 times, and only eight of those teams have won the Stanley Cup. The 2012-13 Chicago Blackhawks were the last team to win the Presidents Trophy and the Stanley Cup in the same season.
Since then, the winners have all stumbled on their way to stardom, often before reaching the Conference Finals:
The last 10 winners of the Presidents Trophy
However, the legend of the curse of the Presidents Trophy was not always as widespread as it is today. For the winners there have been successful streaks in the past. Two of the first four teams to win the Presidents Trophy received the trophy, and three of the four winners from 1998-99 to 2001-02 were crowned NHL champions.
In the first 23 years of the award’s existence, seven winners won the Stanley Cup and two other teams advanced to the Stanley Cup Finals. That’s not exactly damning given the parity in the NHL, but the recent history of the Presidents Trophy has been pretty ugly.
Since the 2007–08 season, only one President’s Trophy winner has won the cup and only one other team has reached the cup final. From 2008–2009 to 2011–2012, three of the four winners of the President’s Trophy were eliminated in the first round. The only exception was the 2010–11 Vancouver Canucks, who lost to the Bruins in the cup final. We will have to wait until next year to see if this current drought can end.
