The Presidents' Trophy () is an award presented by the National Hockey League (NHL) to the team that finishes with the best record (i.e., most points) during the regular season. The Presidents' Trophy has been awarded 40 times to 19 different teams since its inception during the 1985–86 NHL season. three Presidents' Trophy winners have been defeated in the Stanley Cup Final. Nonetheless, the team winning the trophy has won the Cup more than any other playoff seed. The most recent team to win both the trophy and the Stanley Cup in the same season is the 2012–13 Chicago Blackhawks; the only team to accomplish this feat more than once is the Detroit Red Wings (2002 and 2008).
History
The trophy was introduced at the start of the by the League's Board of Governors to recognize the best team in the regular season, informally known as the regular-season championship. Before this, the team that finished in first place when the regular season concluded was allowed to hang a banner reading "NHL League Champions."
A total of 18 teams have won the Presidents' Trophy. The Detroit Red Wings have won six Presidents' Trophies, the most of any team. The Boston Bruins, New York Rangers, and Colorado Avalanche are tied for second with four.
If there are two or more teams tied for first in points in the League, then the NHL's standard tiebreaking procedure is applied, with the first tiebreaker being the team with the most regulation wins (that is, all games won except those won in overtime or in a shootout). During the shortened , both the Colorado Avalanche and Vegas Golden Knights finished tied for first with 82 points in 56 games, with Colorado winning the trophy since they had 35 regulation wins while Vegas had 30. From the through seasons, the first tiebreaker was most regulation and overtime wins. Before 2010, the first tiebreaker was the most wins, including both overtime and shootout wins. The most notable of the pre-2010–11 protocol is from the , where both the Buffalo Sabres and Detroit Red Wings finished tied first with 113 points, with the Sabres winning the Trophy since they had 53 wins, three more than Detroit, who had 50.
Past trophies
From 1937 to 1967, the same criterion now observed for winning the Presidents' Trophy was used to award the Prince of Wales Trophy. With the modern era expansion in the and the creation of the West Division, the Wales Trophy was awarded to the team that finished in first place in the East Division during the regular season. The cash bonus is split amongst the players on the active roster of the winning team.
Factoring all NHL seasons prior to the introduction of the Presidents' Trophy, the Montreal Canadiens have finished first overall 21 times, the most times in League history (although this was most recently accomplished in , before the Trophy was introduced; since its inception, the Canadiens have been Presidents' runners-up three times, in , , and ). Detroit is second with 18 first-overall finishes.