![\"The](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/golf\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/USATSI_28679890-1024x683.jpg\")
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Martin Necas, Nathan MacKinnon and the Avalanche have had a lot to celebrate this season. Jeff Curry \/ Imagn Images<\/p>\n
April 9, 2026 Updated April 10, 2026<\/p>\n
The Colorado Avalanche clinched the Presidents\u2019 Trophy with a 3-1 win over the Calgary Flames on Thursday night.<\/p>\n
This is the fourth time in franchise history the Avalanche have finished atop the NHL\u2019s regular-season standings. They also won the Presidents\u2019 Trophy in 1997, 2001 and 2021.<\/p>\n
Colorado will be looking to buck a recent trend of disappointing postseasons for Presidents\u2019 Trophy winners. Nine of the last 10 teams to win the trophy have lost in the first two rounds of the playoffs, and no winner has won the Stanley Cup since the 2012-13 Chicago Blackhawks.<\/p>\n
Prior to that, the Presidents\u2019 Trophy winner had fared relatively well in the postseason. From 1999 to 2008, four of the nine Presidents\u2019 Trophy winners went on to win it all, including Colorado\u2019s 2000-2001 team led by Joe Sakic, Peter Forsberg and Patrick Roy.<\/p>\n
Colorado has been the NHL\u2019s dominant team from start to finish in this regular season. It is only the sixth team in league history to hold first place from Nov. 1 through the end of the season. The team has been fueled by stars Nathan MacKinnon and Cale Makar, who will both be in the conversation for postseason individual awards. Goaltender Scott Wedgewood has been a pleasant surprise, leading the NHL in save percentage and goals-against average.<\/p>\n
The Avalanche will now enter the postseason as the top seed and will face the winner of the second wild-card spot in the Western Conference. That allows Colorado to avoid the dreaded 2-3 matchup in the Central Division that will pit the Dallas Stars and Minnesota Wild, two of the league\u2019s best teams, against each other in the opening round.<\/p>\n
Colorado has 114 points with four games remaining, with a chance to reach 120 points for the first time in franchise history. Only 12 teams have reached that mark in NHL history, with the most recent being the 2022-23 Bruins (135 points).<\/p>\n
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May 29, 2026<\/p>\n
Connections: Sports Edition<\/p>\n
Spot the pattern. Connect the terms<\/p>\n
Find the hidden link between sports terms<\/p>\n
Play today’s puzzle<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Martin Necas, Nathan MacKinnon and the Avalanche have had a lot to celebrate this season. Jeff Curry \/…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":9267,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1296],"tags":[4464,4465,1323],"class_list":["post-9266","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-presidents-cup","tag-colorado-avalanche","tag-nhl","tag-presidents-cup"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/golf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9266","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/golf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/golf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/golf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/golf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9266"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/golf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9266\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/golf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/9267"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/golf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9266"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/golf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9266"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/golf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9266"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}