Presidents' Trophy The Presidents' Trophy winner is guaranteed home-ice advantage in all four rounds of the Stanley Cup playoffs, provided the team advances that far. However, it does not guarantee that success, as only eight of all the Presidents' Trophy winners have gone on to win the Stanley Cup in their respective years, leading to a popular superstition that the Trophy may be cursed. In addition, six Presidents' Trophy winners have been eliminated in the preliminary round of the playoffs, with first-round upsets being common in the NHL compared to other major professional sports. NHL broadcaster Darren Eliot attributes the apparent lack
Presidents' Trophy the winning team with the NHL's best regular-season record during these years, to which the Presidents' Trophy was added in . 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.