They may have ran away with the Presidents’ Trophy, but the Tampa Bay Lightning don’t have history on their side entering the postseason.
The Tampa Bay Lightning are enjoying the most dominant regular season since the 1995-96 Detroit Red Wings, who won 62 games and wound up finishing with 131 points. Tampa clinched the Presidents’ Trophy on March 18th for the first time in franchise history, earning them home-ice advantage throughout the entire Stanley Cup Playoffs. Obviously, this star-studded group is the team to beat once the playoffs begin.
It’s hard to bet against the Lightning right now. They went to the Stanley Cup Final in 2015 and have reached the Eastern Conference Final in three of the last four years, so we know the pressure doesn’t exactly get to these guys.
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Nikita Kucherov is running away with the scoring title, having registered 121 points through 77 games. That’s the best single-season total since Joe Thornton posted 125 points backs in the 2005-06 campaign.
The Lightning are the NHL’s highest-scoring team, and they’re the fifth-stingiest defensive team. Steven Stamkos and Brayden Point have both hit the 40-goal and 90-point marks. 11 players have double-digit goals and five of them have 20 or more.
Victor Hedman is having another Norris Trophy-like season, while Andrei Vasilevskiy has a strong chance of winning his first Vezina. He’s 37-9-4 with a 2.36 goals-against average and .927 save percentage.
Add it all up, and the Lightning should steamroll their way through the postseason and at least reach the Stanley Cup Final, right?
Not so fast.
If anything, having the best record during the regular season usually foreshadows an early and disappointing exit in the playoffs. Since the NHL introduced the Presidents’ Trophy in 1985-86, only eight of the winners went on to capture the Stanley Cup and only 11 in total reached the Stanley Cup Final.
Six of those teams accomplished the feat between the years 1987 and 2002. Since the 2002-03 season, the only teams that won the Presidents’ Cup and Stanley Cup in the same year were the 2007-08 Red Wings and 2012-13 Chicago Blackhawks.
As great as the 2018-19 Lightning are, many dominant Presidents’ Trophy winners have suffered unfortunate fates in the postseason. Let’s just go back to the 2008-09 season alone and take a look at the Presidents’ Trophy winners that have faltered come playoff time.
- 2008-09 San Jose Sharks: Eliminated in first round
- 2009-10 Washington Capitals: Eliminated in first round
- 2010-11 Vancouver Canucks: Lost in Stanley Cup Final
- 2011-12 Canucks: Eliminated in first round
- 2013-14 Boston Bruins: Eliminated in second round
- 2014-15 New York Rangers: Eliminated in Conference Final
- 2015-16 Capitals: Eliminated in second round
- 2016-17 Capitals: Eliminated in second round
- 2017-18 Nashville Predators: Eliminated in second round
None of those winners looked as unbeatable as the 2005-06 Red Wings, who won 58 games, finished with 124 points and a goal differential of plus-96. But guess what? The eighth-seeded Edmonton Oilers eliminated them in round one.
The 2006-07 Buffalo Sabres won the Presidents’ Trophy with 113 points. That star-studded group had seven players score at least 50 points. Four guys had 30-plus goals. They were eliminated by the Ottawa Senators in the Eastern Conference Final.
As dominant as the 2018-19 Lightning are, some of these other Presidents’ Trophy winners were supposed to win the Stanley Cup. Most of them didn’t even get there, and as you can see, a large handful of them didn’t even get out of the second round.
Now, history has nothing to do with the 2018-19 Lightning, and it certainly won’t impact them in any way, come playoff time. But winning the Presidents’ Trophy usually means that a disappointing postseason exit is on the way.
Simply put, the Lightning are fighting for not only the Stanley Cup, but against history and the odds as well. It’ll be fun to see how the 2018-19 Lightning respond to all the pressure and hype when the playoffs begin in two weeks.
*Stats courtesy of Hockey Reference*