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The President's Day Precedent, Part 1

Seeing how the NHL's best has fared in the postseason.

(BoopNote: We will address this situation — how often the regular season's best team has won the title lately — for each of the other three major sports throughout the day. Next up: baseball at 4 p.m., if you can stand it.)

At a reader's (or is it a "viewer's") suggestion, in honor of President's Day we've been asked to take a look at the most recent President's Trophy winners (which goes to the NHL's top regular season team) and see how often that team has emerged with the Stanley Cup.

Turns out, not too often, unless you are the Detroit Red Wings. They are the only team in the last nine seasons to finish what they started in the regular season. In fact, we just realized that the Stanley Cup has been won by eight different teams the last eight times it has been awarded. (The Flyers, if they could get their act together, could extend that string. But I wouldn't hold your breath or put the kids' college tuition money down on it.)

Since 1989-90, only five of the 21 President's Trophy winners have won the Cup. Here are the last 10: