Presidents' Trophy
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40 free Presidents' Trophy trivia questions with answers — sports quiz, new questions added Oct 2026.
The Presidents' Trophy goes to the NHL's best team over the long regular season, and it comes with a strange reputation. Finishing first should make a club the favourite, yet year after year the winners find new ways to fall short in the spring, and fans talk about a curse. This quiz covers the trophy from every side: how it is decided, what the winners receive, the teams that have lifted it since the mid-1980s, the stars and coaches behind the great seasons, and the upsets that ended them. A few questions reach back to how the league rewarded its first-place team before the trophy existed. It is written for hockey fans who know their standings, and for anyone curious why finishing first is no guarantee of a parade.
30 of 40 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01The Presidents' Trophy goes to the NHL team that finishes the regular season with the most what?
Points
Points settle it, and the award is informally known as the regular-season championship.
Q 02What does winning the Presidents' Trophy guarantee a team throughout the Stanley Cup playoffs?
Home-ice advantage
Home-ice advantage in every round is the prize, yet several winners have still been knocked out in the first round.
Q 03Which team won the first Presidents' Trophy in 1985–86 while chasing a third straight Stanley Cup?
Edmonton Oilers
The Edmonton Oilers won 56 games to take the inaugural award but were knocked out in the division finals that spring.
Q 04Which team was the first to win six Presidents' Trophies, the last of them in the 2007–08 season?
Detroit Red Wings
The Detroit Red Wings reached six in 2007–08 and went on to win the Stanley Cup that spring, as they had as trophy holders in 2002.
Q 05Which team won both the Presidents' Trophy and the Stanley Cup in the shortened 48-game 2012–13 season?
Chicago Blackhawks
The Chicago Blackhawks went a record 24 games from opening night before their first loss in regular time.
Q 06Why were the 2019–20 Presidents' Trophy winners handed the award after playing only 70 games?
The COVID-19 pandemic
The COVID-19 pandemic suspended the season, and the playoffs that followed opened with a round-robin among each conference's top four teams.
Q 07Which Pittsburgh star won the 1992–93 scoring title in a Presidents' Trophy season despite weeks of cancer treatment?
Mario Lemieux
Mario Lemieux missed 24 games with Hodgkin's disease, then came back to lead the Penguins on a record 17-game winning streak.
Q 08Which wild-card team swept the 62-win Tampa Bay Lightning, the 2018–19 Presidents' Trophy winners, in the first round?
Columbus Blue Jackets
The Columbus Blue Jackets had never won a playoff series before, and no Presidents' Trophy winner had ever been swept in round one.
Q 09Which captain's record 215-point season in 1985–86 helped his team win the very first Presidents' Trophy?
Wayne Gretzky
Wayne Gretzky also set the single-season assists record that year with 163, breaking marks he already held.
Q 10Which team twice missed the playoffs the season after winning the Presidents' Trophy, in 1992–93 and again in 2024–25?
New York Rangers
The New York Rangers answered the first miss by winning the trophy again in 1993–94 and ending a 54-year Stanley Cup drought.
Q 11Which captain guaranteed a Game 6 win in 1994, then scored a hat trick for that season's Presidents' Trophy winners?
Mark Messier
Mark Messier made the promise with his team one loss from elimination, then scored three third-period goals to force a seventh game.
Q 12Which team won the 2006–07 Presidents' Trophy on a tiebreaker after two clubs finished level at the top?
Buffalo Sabres
The Buffalo Sabres took it with 53 wins, three more than the club they tied, under a rule that then counted every kind of victory.
Q 13Which team set an NHL record with 65 wins in 2022–23, took the Presidents' Trophy, then lost in the first round?
Boston Bruins
Q 21Which coach led the 1995–96 Presidents' Trophy winners to 62 wins, breaking his own NHL record of 60?
Scotty Bowman
Scotty Bowman won his second Jack Adams Award as coach of the year for that season, 19 years after his first.
Q 22Which Dallas Stars winger scored the triple-overtime goal that added the 1999 Stanley Cup to the Presidents' Trophy?
Brett Hull
Brett Hull's skate was in the crease as he scored, and the beaten finalists protested that the goal broke the rules of the day.
Q 23Which veteran defenceman won his first Stanley Cup in his final season, with the 2000–01 Presidents' Trophy winners?
Ray Bourque
Ray Bourque had played 1,612 regular-season games before lifting the Cup, the longest wait of any champion to that point.
The Boston Bruins led that series three games to one before losing in seven, a collapse that revived talk of a trophy curse.
Q 14Which team won the 2021–22 Presidents' Trophy, then eliminated the next season's winners in the first round?
Florida Panthers
The Florida Panthers had been swept in the second round as trophy holders, then returned a year later to stun the record-setting favourites.
Q 15Which team won back-to-back Presidents' Trophies in 2016 and 2017 but lost to Pittsburgh in the second round both times?
Washington Capitals
The Washington Capitals finally lifted the Stanley Cup in 2018, a season in which another team finished first overall.
Q 16Which team took its first Presidents' Trophy in 2010–11, then lost the Stanley Cup Final in seven games?
Vancouver Canucks
The Vancouver Canucks led the league in goals scored and fewest allowed that year, then won the trophy again the next season.
Q 17Which team won its first Presidents' Trophy in 2002–03, the same season it filed for bankruptcy?
Ottawa Senators
The Ottawa Senators played on with emergency financing from the NHL and still reached the conference finals that spring.
Q 18Which team won the 1988–89 Presidents' Trophy and then captured the first Stanley Cup in franchise history?
Calgary Flames
The Calgary Flames had also finished first overall a year earlier, only to lose in the second round to their provincial rivals.
Q 19Which team, newly relocated from Quebec, beat the 62-win Presidents' Trophy winners in the 1996 conference finals?
Colorado Avalanche
The Colorado Avalanche went on to win the Stanley Cup that spring, and the series sparked one of hockey's most vicious rivalries.
Q 20Which team had the NHL's best record in 1924–25 but was barred from the playoffs after its players went on strike?
Hamilton Tigers
The Hamilton Tigers wanted extra pay for a longer schedule; the franchise folded and its players stocked the new New York Americans.
Q 24Which goalie won the Hart and Vezina trophies as the Winnipeg Jets claimed their first Presidents' Trophy in 2024–25?
Connor Hellebuyck
Connor Hellebuyck was the first goaltender voted league MVP since Carey Price a decade earlier.
Q 25Which Tampa Bay forward was voted league MVP in 2018–19, the season of the team's first Presidents' Trophy?
Nikita Kucherov
Nikita Kucherov also broke Alexander Mogilny's record for the highest-scoring season by a Russian-born player.
Q 26Who was NHL president when the Presidents' Trophy was first awarded in 1986, midway through a 15-year term?
John Ziegler
John Ziegler took over from Clarence Campbell in 1977 and oversaw the 1979 merger that brought four WHA teams into the NHL.
Q 27Which defenceman's own goal on his 23rd birthday knocked the first Presidents' Trophy winners out of the 1986 playoffs?
Steve Smith
Steve Smith's clearing attempt bounced in off goalie Grant Fuhr's skate in Game 7, and his team could not find an equalizer.
Q 28Which Swedish winger won the scoring title for the 2010–11 Presidents' Trophy winners?
Daniel Sedin
Daniel Sedin clinched the Art Ross Trophy with two assists in the season finale, keeping it in the family for a second year.
Q 29Which goalie tied the NHL single-season record with 48 wins for the 2015–16 Presidents' Trophy winners?
Braden Holtby
Braden Holtby matched Martin Brodeur's mark in 66 starts and won the Vezina Trophy as the league's best goaltender.
Q 30Which Swede captained the 2007–08 Presidents' Trophy winners to the Stanley Cup, a first for a European-trained captain?
Nicklas Lidstrom
Nicklas Lidstrom had already become the first European to win the Conn Smythe Trophy as playoff MVP, in 2002.