Matthew Tkachuk stood on the ice at TD Garden on Sunday evening with a towel draped around his neck and tried to convey to the television audience the gravity of what his Florida Panthers had just accomplished.
By eliminating the record-setting, Presidents’ Trophy-winning Boston Bruins in stunning fashion, the Panthers superstar was adamant his club had just pulled off one of the most seismic upsets in league history.
Advertisement
“It really is the biggest upset in NHL history — to every single person other than the guys in that room,” Tkachuk told Sportsnet rinkside reporter Caroline Cameron.
And on the one hand, Tkachuk is probably accurate.
The Panthers entered this series trailing the Bruins by 43 points in the regular season, one of the biggest discrepancies we’ve ever seen in a first-round upset. The only larger gap overcome by a team was a 48-point difference by the Los Angeles Kings, who stunned the upstart Edmonton Oilers in a best-of-five opening-round series in 1982. So if we’re looking at this strictly through the lens of the standings and a point differential, this absolutely qualifies as a massive upset. It’s the biggest upset — in terms of a point differential — in a best-of-seven series in NHL history.
So does this qualify as an upset? You bet.
Should we be surprised by this result? Absolutely not.
Boston losing early should have been the most predictable narrative heading into this year’s postseason. If you had listened to Monday episodes of The Athletic Hockey Show in the weeks leading up to the playoffs, you would have heard myself and co-host Julian McKenzie sounding the warning sirens about the Bruins.
When the Bruins set the record for regular-season wins this season, they essentially sealed their own fate for the Stanley Cup playoffs. Before we dive into the alarming trend of the best Presidents’ Trophy-winning teams getting bounced early from the playoffs, we need to understand the same phenomenon exists in other professional sports.
Consider that of the major four sports in North America — NHL, NFL, NBA and MLB — no league has a franchise that managed to set the single-season record for wins and win the league championship in the same season.
Best all-time regular seasons League Team Regular Season Wins Playoff Result NHL 2022-23 Boston Bruins 65 Lost in first round to FLA NFL 2007 New England Patriots 16 Lost in Super Bowl to NYG NBA 2015-16 Golden State Warriors 73 Lost in NBA Finals to CLE MLB 2001 Seattle Mariners 116 Lost ALCS to NYY
The Bruins are the only team on this list who didn’t even manage to win a single playoff series or game. The Seattle Mariners managed to beat Cleveland in the ALDS before being knocked out Yankees. Meanwhile, the Patriots and Warriors reached the finals — and were on the verge of securing a championship — before suffering heartbreaking defeats.
Advertisement
The 2022-23 Bruins have simply replaced the 2018-19 Tampa Bay Lightning on this list. That Tampa team was another Presidents’ Trophy club that set an NHL record for wins, only to meekly bow out in the first round.
And here is where it gets interesting.
With Boston being knocked out of the playoffs in the first round this spring, it now means the nine best teams of the Presidents’ Trophy era (since 1985-86) have failed to win the Stanley Cup that season. Not only that, none of these teams even managed to make it to the Stanley Cup Final — a mind-boggling fact that seems to defy logic.
Three other teams suffered the same fate as Boston and experienced a first-round exit. Four teams were bounced in the second round.
And the only team on this list to even advance to the conference final was the 1995-96 Red Wings, who were eventually ousted by the Colorado Avalanche in a fierce and bitter six-game playoff series. It’s hard to lump that Red Wings team in as an unmitigated Presidents’ Trophy disaster, considering they won two rounds and lost to the eventual Stanley Cup champion. But they do fit the mold for underachieving in the playoffs relative to their regular season performance as Presidents’ Trophy champions.
The random and arbitrary cutoff here appears to be 119 points.
If you accumulate 119 points and win the Presidents’ Trophy, apparently you can forget about reaching the Stanley Cup Final.
The 2000-01 Colorado Avalanche holds the high-water distinction of being able to notch 118 points and still win the Stanley Cup that season. We’ve also seen a team with 117 points (1989 Calgary Flames), 116 points (2002 Detroit Red Wings), 115 points (2008 Detroit Red Wings) and 114 points (1999 Dallas Stars) accomplish this feat.
But every team with 119 points and a Presidents’ Trophy title endured a heartbreaking end to their season.
Advertisement
Perhaps we need to retroactively consider labelling this as the ‘Steve Smith Curse’.
Heading into the 1985-86 season, the NHL decided to create the Presidents’ Trophy to award annually to the club that posted the best record in the regular season.
In 1984-85 — the final season before the Presidents’ Trophy — the two top regular season teams met in the Stanley Cup Final, with the Edmonton Oilers (109 points) defeating the Philadelphia Flyers (113 points). One season prior to that, the Oilers cruised to a 119-point regular season and breezed to their first Stanley Cup with a 15-4 record in the playoffs.
In 1981 and 1982, the Islanders captured Stanley Cups after finishing as the top regular-season team.
When the Montreal Canadiens were rolling through their dynasty in the 1970s, they finished with the best record in the league three times en route to winning the Stanley Cup in 1976, 1977 and 1978.
In summation, in the 10 seasons from 1976-1985, the team with the best regular season record reached the Stanley Cup Final eight times. And six times they emerged victorious, with only the Philadelphia Flyers (1980 and 1985) reaching the Final and falling short.
And then the league decided to commemorate the best regular season team with the Presidents’ Trophy in 1985-86.
That spring, the Edmonton Oilers — gunning for their third consecutive Stanley Cup and winners of the inaugural President’s Trophy — fell victim to a Steve Smith own goal in Game 7 of the Smythe Division Final against Calgary. And that unfortunate bounce kickstarted the trend of teams with 119 points flaming out in the playoffs.
The curse has cemented legendary status for the likes of David Volek (1993), Fernando Pisani (2006) and Jaroslav Halak (2010). Carter Verhaerge will probably join that club after his Game 7 heroics on Sunday evening in Boston.
Advertisement
It has also caused elite goalies for powerhouse teams to morph into pedestrian netminders in the snap of a finger. It’s no coincidence the three best teams to fall victim to this curse — the 2023 Bruins, the 2019 Lightning and the 1996 Red Wings — also happened to suffer the three biggest dips in save percentage during the series in which they were eliminated.
The Bruins also failed to capitalize on three separate chances to eliminate the Panthers. And they’re certainly not alone on that front. The 2010 Washington Capitals also blew a 3-1 series lead against Montreal. The 1993 Penguins squandered a 3-2 lead against the Islanders. The 1986 Oilers lost their Game 7 against the Flames. So all told, these powerhouse teams are now a combined 0-9 in chances to eliminate their opponents.
Since the Presidents’ Trophy was created in 1986, a total of eight teams have managed to win the Stanley Cup in the same season as they posted the best regular season record. But with the Bruins’ loss to the Panthers, that is also the same number of Presidents’ Trophy winners — eight — who have been bounced in the first round of the playoffs.
The 2022-23 Bruins certainly have a lot of company when it comes to the heartache and misery of a first-round collapse in the Stanley Cup playoffs. Maybe that makes their fans feel better. Maybe it makes them feel worse. Or in reality, maybe they’re feeling nothing at all.
But they should have seen this coming.
And until an NHL team can eclipse the 119-point mark with a Presidents’ Trophy and win a Stanley Cup championship in the same season, we should just assume they are destined for a heartbreaking finish.
(Photo: John Tlumacki / The Boston Globe via Getty Images)