The Washington Capitals just had their best weekend I can remember that did not involve any fountains. With fifteen goals in two games, the Caps seized the league lead temporarily from the Winnipeg Jets, who retook first on Monday night with a win over San Jose.
Sitting in first would be a very good thing, but you wouldn’t know it if you perused a smattering of our menchies on X, The Everything App. These are from a couple weeks ago:
- It’s okay maybe they’re just trying to not get the presidents trophy curse
- Don’t jinx it. We don’t want the President’s Trophy! Let the Jets have it.
- Coach Carbs thinking deep… avoid Presidents Cup Curse 👌
- Other than being the best team being a playoff curse for them…
- The could get the death curse…. PRESIDENTS TROPHY 🏆!!!!
The NHL’s top team at the end of the regular season receives the Presidents’ Trophy. It is ugly, and no one ever touches it, but it is not cursed.
Try telling that to the Washington Capitals of 2010, who won 121 points in the regular season only to get first-rounded, critically, by the Montreal Canadiens in seven games, a series that will haunt me on my deathbed. Try telling it to the Washington Capitals of 2016, who won 120 points and fell to the Pittsburgh Penguins in the second round. And if you dare, try telling it to the Washington Capitals of 2017, who won 118 points and fell again to the Pittsburgh Penguins in the second round exactly one year later.
When the Washington Capitals did win the Stanley Cup in 2018, they did so from sixth place in the league.
But there is no Presidents’ Trophy curse. The winner of the Presidents’ Trophy has the best chance to win the Stanley Cup.
Here is the data since 1980:
In the last 44 years, there have been ten Cup winners who were also the best regular-season team. They were:
- 1981 New York Islanders
- 1982 New York Islanders
- 1984 Edmonton Oilers
- 1987 Edmonton Oilers
- 1989 Calgary Flames
- 1994 New York Rangers
- 1999 Dallas Stars
- 2001 Colorado Avalanche
- 2002 Detroit Red Wings
- 2013 Chicago Blackhawks
Okay, yeah, I see it too. Only one Presidents’ Trophy winner has won the Cup since 2002, when the price of eggs was $1.03. I don’t know what to make of that, but like usual let’s ignore inconvenient facts for the purpose of Rhetoric.
If the playoffs were to start today, everyone would go, “Uh, what happened to the last month and a half of the season?” but also these would be the match-ups in the east:
- Leafs vs Red Wings
- Panthers vs Lightning
- Hurricanes vs Devils
- Capitals vs Senators
This is what we want if we want the Caps to have the best chance at winning the Cup. Hockeyviz says the Caps’ most likely opponents right now are the Wings and Senators (both at 16 percent), the Rangers (twelve percent) and Blue Jackets (eleven percent). The Wings and Jackets rank in the bottom ten at five-on-five expected goals, though the Senators could be a sleeper opponent. The Rangers would be a rematch of that miserable sweep from last year.
Meanwhile, that Metropolitan 2-3 series between the Devils and Hurricanes would be a cataclysm. The number-one possession team (Carolina) against the rank-six team (New Jersey), with both teams having made major upgrades – Mikko Rantanen adding finishing talent to the Canes, Sheldon Keefe as first-season coach for the Devils. They are both excellent teams against whom the Caps have split both season series. Winning the Presidents’ Trophy would all but guarantee dodging them in the first round, so they can soften one another up for a later-round date with Washington.
I choose to believe you goblins are all doing a bit when you say the Caps should try not to win the Presidents’ Trophy. In reality, the Caps should do everything they can to win every point they can.
But if, by some twist of fate, the Winnipeg Jets edge them out by a point or two, and the Caps have to settle for second place – which still has a pretty good historic chance of winning the Cup – I’d be fine with that too.
