Avalanche earn Presidents’ Trophy, road to Stanley Cup goes through Denver

The Colorado Avalanche have secured the Presidents’ Trophy for the 2025-26 NHL season.

It’s awarded annually to the team with the best regular season record, which in this case will be the Avs.

Colorado beat the Calgary Flames 3-1 on Thursday night, getting to 114 points and improving their dazzling record to 52-16-10 on the season.

The Avalanche wrapped up the Central Division and Western Conference’s No. 1 seed on Tuesday, but now officially can’t be caught by the Hurricanes. Carolina can finish with a maximum of 114 points, but Colorado holds the regulation wins tiebreaker, so it’s over.

At Ball Arena on Thursday, Avs captain Gabriel Landeskog kicked the party off with a goal late in the first period. It was nice to see Landeskog get one in a Presidents’ Trophy clinching game, given that he missed each of the last three regular seasons.

The Captain leads the way 🫡 pic.twitter.com/WovEBzOqmi

— z – Colorado Avalanche (@Avalanche) April 10, 2026

Speaking of nice to see, Avalanche goalie Mackenzie Blackwood made 29 saves and only gave up one goal very late. The Flames thought they had another to tie it, but it was challenged and ruled offsides. It was a good bounce back effort from Blackwood who had suffered a couple bad outings in a row.

Martin Necas also scored, his 38th goal of the season, a brilliant play that was set up on a nice pass from Nathan MacKinnon. The Hart Trophy favorite MacKinnon added an empty-netter, his 52nd goal of the year. That mark is a new career high.

Meanwhile, many fans believe in the curse of the Presidents’ Trophy. The last team to win the Stanley Cup after earning it was the 2012-13 Blackhawks. Since then, 10 of 12 squads have lost in either Round 1 or Round 2 of the playoffs. That was the case with the 2020-21 Avalanche, who fell in the second-round to the Vegas Golden Knights.

But maybe the Presidents’ Trophy is not cursed in Colorado? The 2000-2001 Avs took it home with 118 points then hoisted the Cup a couple of months later. It took a memorable Game 7 against the Devils, Ray Bourque’s final ever NHL contest, but the ’01 team got it done.

And with this task accomplished for the current group, the road to a championship will go through Denver. No matter the opponent in the playoffs the Avalanche will host Games 1,2, 5 and 7 in every series.

Now, the focus will be on health down the stretch, before the regular season concludes in one week against the Seattle Kraken.

The Avalanche have checked a lot of boxes this year. Hopefully another huge one is still to come in the form of the Stanley Cup.

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