What is the Presidents’ Trophy and how many have the St. Louis Blues won?
The Presidents’ Trophy may not carry the same prestige as the Stanley Cup, but it’s also worth recognizing the one team that outlasted 31 others in terms of attaining the highest points total. While the St. Louis Blues have never bested the league’s other 31 teams just yet, they did win the Presidents’ Trophy back in 1999-00 when there were just 28 teams - seems like ages ago, right?
Anyway, that season, the Blues crushed the competition in the regular season, ending the campaign with 114 points and six more than the second-place finisher, their then-division rival, the Detroit Red Wings. But unfortunately for the Blues, they became just the second team since the Presidents’ Trophy’s introduction in 1985-86 to lose in the first round of the playoffs.
Back in 1990-91, the Chicago Blackhawks became the first team in NHL history to receive the “honor” of losing in the first round. However, since the Blues loss in the 2000 Western Conference Quarterfinals, six other teams have joined them.
St. Louis Blues Presidents’ Trophy-winning postseason didn’t go as planned
To the Blues credit, at least they took the 2000 Conference Quarterfinal to seven games against the underdog San Jose Sharks. And it seemed as though St. Louis would cruise to a series win following a 5-3 victory over San Jose in Game 1.
But that turned out to be far from the case as the Sharks snagged Games 2, 3, and 4 by a combined score of 9-5, with the Blues falling to San Jose twice by just one goal. Then the Blues stormed back, taking Game 5 by a score of 5-3 before securing a blowout 6-2 win in Game 6, and seemingly, the momentum shifted back to St. Louis.
Alas, it wasn’t meant to be, as the Sharks skated into Gateway City and clinched the series with a 3-1 win, leaving the Blues to wonder what might have been. But throughout the years, the same could be said for the 2005-06 Detroit Red Wings, 2008-09 Sharks, 2009-10 Washington Capitals, 2011-12 Vancouver Canucks, and perhaps most infamously, the 2018-19 Tampa Bay Lightning, and the 2022-23 Boston Bruins.
That said, the Blues have company these days, even if it’s a bitter trace of infamy for any team to snag the highest points total in the regular season only to falter in the playoffs. Oh, and by the way, when I said “most infamously” regarding the Tampa Bay Lightning, I definitely meant “most famously,” considering how well that season ended for the Blues.
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(Historical data provided by Hockey-Reference)