HIGHLIGHTS
- Colorado Avalanche clinch the Presidents’ Trophy with the NHL’s best record for the 2025-26 season
- No Presidents’ Trophy winner has won the Stanley Cup since the 2013 Blackhawks. That is 13 straight years
- Full breakdown of the curse, the table of shame, and whether this Avs team can break it below
The Colorado Avalanche are the best team in the NHL. Now comes the hard part.
Colorado clinched the Presidents’ Trophy Thursday night, securing the league’s best record for the 2025-26 season. They enter the playoffs as the No. 1 seed in the West, the top team in hockey, and the inheritors of one of the sport’s most stubborn curses.
No team has won the Presidents’ Trophy and the Stanley Cup in the same season since the 2012-13 Chicago Blackhawks. That’s 13 straight years of the best regular-season team going home without the Cup.
The table tells the story better than words:
| Season | Winner | Points | Playoff Result |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2013 | Chicago Blackhawks | 77* | ✅ Won Stanley Cup |
| 2014 | Boston Bruins | 117 | ❌ Lost R2 (MTL) |
| 2015 | New York Rangers | 113 | ❌ Lost ECF (TBL) |
| 2016 | Washington Capitals | 120 | ❌ Lost R2 (PIT) |
| 2017 | Washington Capitals | 118 | ❌ Lost R2 (PIT) |
| 2018 | Nashville Predators | 117 | ❌ Lost R2 (WPG) |
| 2019 | Tampa Bay Lightning | 128 | ❌ Lost R1 (CBJ) |
| 2020 | Boston Bruins | 100 | ❌ Lost R2 (TBL) |
| 2021 | Colorado Avalanche | 82* | ❌ Lost R2 (VGK) |
| 2022 | Florida Panthers | 122 | ❌ Lost R2 (TBL) |
| 2023 | Boston Bruins | 135 | ❌ Lost R1 (FLA) |
| 2024 | New York Rangers | 114 | ❌ Lost ECF (FLA) |
| 2025 | Winnipeg Jets | 116 | ❌ Lost R2 (DAL) |
| 2026 | Colorado Avalanche | TBD | ? |
The Avalanche know this. Nathan MacKinnon has talked about the trophy being meaningless compared to what they’re actually chasing. Cale Makar won the Cup with this franchise in 2022, so he knows the difference between a regular season title and the one that matters.
Colorado finished 51-16-10. They were the best team in the league by a significant margin. MacKinnon leads the NHL in goals at 51 with Caufield one back, Makar is the best defenseman in the game, and Martin Necas, acquired in the Mikko Rantanen trade, has been a revelation at 38 goals and 103 points. Brock Nelson provided the second-line center this team needed. This is a deep roster, and it was built intentionally.
The 2021-22 Colorado Avalanche are the closest anyone has come. They won the Cup that year, but Florida had the Presidents’ Trophy. That season is the only time in this 13-year stretch where the Stanley Cup winner had over 100 points. Everyone else either fell short of the Cup or fell well short of it.
The Presidents’ Trophy gets you home ice and a first-round matchup against the second wild-card team. That’s the reward. Whether it’s a curse or just the nature of the league, 13 straight years is a hard trend to argue with.
Colorado doesn’t care. They’ve been building toward this for years. If anyone is going to break the streak, the argument starts here.
