Stanley Cup Playoffs: 5 best Presidents’ Trophy winners that didn’t win the Stanley Cup
The 2018-19 Tampa Bay Lightning can feel better in knowing that they’re not the only historically dominant Presidents’ Trophy winners that unraveled in the Stanley Cup Playoffs.
Heading into the 2019 playoffs, the Tampa Bay Lightning had the chance to make their case as the greatest NHL team ever assembled, having won the Presidents’ Trophy with 62 wins and 128 points. Instead, the Lightning joined the long list of Presidents’ Trophy winners that failed to win in the Stanley Cup Playoffs. They got swept in humiliating fashion by the Columbus Blue Jackets, who won their first playoff series in franchise history.
Everybody knows that it’s the hardest trophy to win in professional sports, but the Lightning were heavily expected to at least reach the Eastern Conference Final, which they had reached in three of the previous four years.
Tampa won’t be in the history books as one of the greatest teams in NHL history. They’ll be remembered for perhaps the greatest choke in league history instead. But, there is a silver lining that Tampa fans can’t forget.
What is that, you might ask? Well, the Lightning are far from the first historically dominant Presidents’ Trophy winners that didn’t win the Stanley Cup. In fact, you might even make a case that there have been other teams who simply choked and disappointed more than the 2018-19 Bolts.
Following the sweep at the hands of the Blue Jackets, the Lightning have placed themselves in the list of all-time great Presidents’ Trophy winners that couldn’t win it all. You won’t be surprised in seeing them on this list, but where do the Bolts stack up against some of the other best teams that couldn’t win it all? Let’s take a look.
5. 1985-86 Edmonton Oilers
The Edmonton Oilers had won back-to-back Stanley Cups and were trying to join the Montreal Canadiens (four straight Cups from 1976 to ‘1979) and New York Islanders (1980 to 1983) in the list of teams that successful three-peated over the past decade.
Edmonton won the Presidents’ Trophy after compiling a record of 56-17-7, good for 119 points. They led the NHL with 426 goals for in the regular season. Wayne Gretzky led the way with 52 goals and a single-season record of 215 points. The Great One ran away with both the scoring title and the Hart Trophy.
This Edmonton team, loaded with future Hall of Famers, had four 100-point players. That didn’t include franchise icon Mark Messier, who finished with 35 goals and 84 points. Goalie Grant Fuhr posted a superb 29-8-0 record.
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The Oilers finished with more points than the 1984-85 team that won the Stanley Cup. Heading into the postseason, it was easy to believe that Edmonton’s biggest enemy was itself. They just had to play their game and not give anything away. Sure enough, that ended up happening.
Edmonton swept Vancouver in the first round of the playoffs, and they went advanced to round two — taking on the arch-rival Calgary Flames. The Oilers had finished with 30 more points in the regular season, and it should have been an easy series victory.
But in the waning minutes of Game 7, Edmonton blueliner Steve Smith (on his birthday, mind you), accidentally banked the puck off Fuhr’s skate and into the net. Smith’s errant past would be the difference maker, and Calgary pulled off the stunning upset.
Well, Smith and the Oilers would go on to win the Stanley Cup in 1987, ’88 and ’90. So he redeemed himself just fine. But the Oilers would also never accomplish the three-peat, as one of the most dominant regular seasons ever wound up being all for nothing.
4. 2005-06 Detroit Red Wings
The Detroit Red Wings did not disappoint in their first year under head coach Mike Babcock. At least, not in the regular season. Detroit won their second consecutive Presidents’ Trophy and their third overall in the last four years. This was the first season where the NHL had implemented the salary cap, but it didn’t stop the Red Wings from toying with the competition.
They finished with a 58-16-8 record, good enough for 124 points, the third-most ever for a Presidents’ Trophy-winning team. Detroit had a ridiculous plus-96 goal differential, and a whopping eight players scored 20 goals.
Pavel Datsyuk (87 points), Henrik Zetterberg (39 goals, 85 points), Brendan Shanahan (40 goals, 81 points), and Nicklas Lidstrom (a career-high 80 points), led an unstoppable offensive machine. Lidstrom also won the Norris Trophy.
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Veteran blueliner Mathieu Schneider also enjoyed a career season with 21 goals and 59 points. And while we’re discussing career years, Tomas Holmstrom had 59 points. Bottom six forward Jason Williams also chipped in with 21 goals and 58 points.
So what in the world happened to a perennial powerhouse that had already won three Stanley Cups in the previous nine years? They drew a not-so-ideal matchup against a star-studded Edmonton Oilers team that underachieved in the regular season.
Trade deadline pickup and veteran goalie Dwayne Roloson shut down the Red Wings’ high-powered offense. He registered an incredible .929 save percentage, allowing just 17 goals on 238 shots faced.
Hall of Fame defenceman Chris Pronger shut down the Red Wings’ top guns and registered seven points in the series. Shawn Horcoff added six of his own. Unsung heroes Sergei Samsonov (six points), Fernando Pisani (six points) and Jarrett Stoll (five points) all came through in the the clutch situations.
Leading the series 3-2 in Game 6, Edmonton tied the game with under four minutes to go. Samsonov then fed Ales Hemsky for the game-winning goal with only 1:06 left. The Oilers would reach the Stanley Cup Final — where they fell to the Carolina Hurricanes in seven games.
This Red Wings powerhouse ultimately failed to capture the big prize, and captain Steve Yzerman would retire. On the bright side, Detroit would go on to capture both the Presidents’ Trophy and Stanley Cup two years later.
3. 1992-93 Pittsburgh Penguins
Mario Lemieux‘s Pittsburgh Penguins looked destined to pull off the improbable three-peat, having won Lord Stanley’s mug in 1991 and ’92. But you can make a case that the 1992-93 Pens were a far better team than the previous Cup-winning squads.
Lemieux missed 24 games after being diagnosed with Hodgkin’s Disease, which threatened both his career and his life. But once “Super Mario” returned, he was virtually unstoppable — winning the scoring title with 160 points.
The Penguins won the Presidents’ Trophy after garnering 56 wins and 119 points. But the most impressive part of their regular season? The Penguins set a record of 17 straight wins. 26 years later, and we’re still waiting to see if anybody will break it.
Lemieux won the scoring title, but this entire Pittsburgh club was stacked from top to bottom. Three other players hit 100 points — Kevin Stevens (111), Rick Tocchet (109) and Ron Francis (100). Heck, Jaromir Jagr had a “down” year with 94. Hall of Fame blueliner Larry Murphy had 80, while Joe Mullen and Shawn McEachern tallied 33 and 28 goals, respectively.
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Pittsburgh faced the New Jersey Devils in the opening round of the playoffs, cruising through in five games. Up next, the Pens faced a New York Islanders team that finished with 32 less points in the regular season.
Though the Isles’ couldn’t contain Pittsburgh’s top stars, Ray Ferraro and Derek King took their games to another level, each scoring eight points in the series, while Steve Thomas added seven. Goalie Glenn Healy also came up with so many big saves, and before we knew it, the Isles took Pittsburgh to Game 7.
The Isles led 3-1 in the waning stages, but the Pens scored with just 3:47 to go. Tocchet tied the game up with 60 seconds remaining, and the Pens looked poised to three-peat after all. They just needed that next goal.
But unlikely hero David Volek — who scored earlier in the game — hammered home the series-winning goal to silence the Steel City. Volek only had eight goals and 21 points in the regular season, and he was out of the NHL after the 1993-94 campaign.
He’s also the guy who defeated one of the most historically dominant teams ever assembled.
2. 2018-19 Tampa Bay Lightning
Fresh in the minds of every hockey fan, the 2018-19 Tampa Bay Lightning endured perhaps the most unbelievable and inexcusable playoff defeat in NHL history.
These were not your average Presidents’ Trophy winners. In an era that’s built around parity, teams aren’t supposed to win 62 games these days. They’re not supposed to register 128 points. Not in an era with the salary cap. No way.
Well, the Lightning matched the 1995-96 Detroit Red Wings for most wins in a single season. Nikita Kucherov ran away with the scoring title after registering 128 points. The Lightning led the NHL with 325 goals.
Steven Stamkos (45 goals, 98 points) and Brayden Point (41 goals, 92 points), took their games to a whole new level. In all, seven Tampa players scored at least 18 goals, and 11 players reached double-digits.
Not only that, but the Lightning were the NHL’s fifth-stingiest team, allowing just 222 goals in the regular season. And oh, the Lightning had the NHL’s best power play (28.2 percent) and penalty killing (85 percent) units.
So what went wrong for the Lightning against the Columbus Blue Jackets — a team that barely qualified for the postseason — in the opening round? Let’s just say practically everything. Kucherov was suspended for Game 3 after a dirty hit on Markus Nutivaara. Reigning Norris Trophy winner Victor Hedman missed the final two games due to injury.
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21-year-old blueliner Erik Cernak led Tampa with three points in the series. Stamkos, Kucherov and Point combined for just five points in the four-game sweep. Tyler Johnson and Ondrej Palat registered one point apiece.
And finally, star goalie Andrei Vasilevskiy simply didn’t show up when his team needed it most. He had a woeful .856 save percentage and 3.82 goals against average. The Blue Jackets simply made his life miserable in the whole series.
The Lightning were expected to at least reach the Stanley Cup Final. Nothing less. That’s how it is when you win 62 games in the 21st century. But somehow, and someway, they went incognito once the playoffs began. The fact they didn’t even win one game just makes this heartbreaking defeat more embarrassing.
1. 1995-96 Detroit Red Wings
Who else was going to be Number 1? In an era where parity was starting to come around, the 1995-96 Detroit Red Wings set an NHL record with 62 wins. They picked up a whopping 131 points, finishing just one point behind the 1976-77 Montreal Canadiens for the most in a single season.
But you could argue that this 1995-96 Detroit team was the most dominant ever seen at the time. They scored 325 goals in the regular season (third-most) and surrendered the fewest (181). That’s right, the Red Wings had a jaw-dropping plus-144 goal differential.
This Red Wings team featured seven Hall of Famers in Steve Yzerman, Sergei Fedorov, Paul Coffey, Viacheslav Fetisov, Dino Ciccarelli, Nicklas Lidstrom, and Igor Larionov. Fedorov led the team with 39 goals and 107 points. Six Detroit players registered over 60 points.
Detroit was also carried by two great goalies in veteran Mike Vernon and a young Chris Osgood. The Red Wing goalies combined for a .910 save percentage and 2.17 goals against average. In short, there was no weakness in this team.
But when the playoffs came around, the Red Wings just weren’t themselves. They needed six games to get by a 78-point Winnipeg Jets team in round one. Detroit didn’t put away the St. Louis Blues in round two until Steve Yzerman’s iconic goal in double overtime.
Detroit met the Colorado Avalanche in the Western Conference Final, but Yzerman and co. had no idea what they were about to run into. Just some goalie named Patrick Roy, and a Colorado team stacked with their own group of future Hall of Famers.
The Avalanche used their size and physicality to pummel the speedy and more skilled Red Wings. Roy also turned aside 153 of the 169 shots he faced in the series. Joe Sakic took off with 10 points in the series, while Mike Ricci and Adam Deadmarsh combined for 15.
Fedorov had nine points for Detroit, but Coffey was a distant second with five points in the series. Ciccarelli, Larionov, Lidstrom and Yzerman each had just three. They simply couldn’t solve Roy, who tuned in one of the most dominant goaltending performances ever.
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Colorado finished off the Presidents’ Trophy winners, and they went on to win the Stanley Cup in their first year of playing in the Mile High City. The Avs and Red Wings would meet four more times in the playoffs over the next six seasons, each winning twice. Detroit won it all in 1997, 1998, and 2002, while the Avs added a second Cup in 2001.