Canucks Win Second Consecutive President’s Trophy

 
Manny Malhotra joins Henrik Sedin to celebrate the 2010-11 President’s Trophy.
The Canucks repeated as "top of the table" champs with their 3-0 victory tonight.

With tonight’s 3-0 demolition of the Edmonton Oilers, the Canucks secured their second consecutive President’s Trophy – awarded to the team with the best record in the NHL regular season. The award is meaningless in normative terms, no one throws a parade for the team that wins it, and no one riots if a team narrowly falls short. While this isn’t European soccer, the President’s Trophy does come with home-ice advantage throughout the 2012 NHL playoffs, so that’s pretty neat.

The Canucks become the fifth club in history to repeat as President’s Trophy winners, and the first team to do so since 1999. Of the four other clubs to have accomplished the feat (the Edmonton Oilers in 1985-87, the Calgary Flames in 1987-89, the Detroit Red Wings in 1994-96 and the Dallas Stars in 1997-99) three went on to win the Stanley Cup the second time around. While that sounds auspicious, the 95-96 Detroit Red Wings – the only team in that group that failed to hoist the trophy that matters in the same season that they won their second consecutive President’s Trophy – was also the only team in that group to win the President’s Trophy the year after losing in the Stanley Cup Finals.

At the end of the day, the President’s Trophy is a woefully under-celebrated award. While one could bemoan that fact until the cows come home, that’s just the way it is. and until this Canucks team hoists a Stanley Cup, well, they won’t have ever done so. Regardless, Canucks fans have been extremely fortunate to enjoy two seasons of thorough dominance, and should be feeling pretty good about the home team headed into the postseason.