What is the Presidents’ Trophy and how many have the NY Rangers won?

While it’s not as prestigious as the Stanley Cup, the Presidents’ Trophy is still a prestigious award teams can look fondly at, given how tough it is to win in any pro sports league. While the best of the 16 teams in the NHL’s postseason wins the grand prize, and that’s not easy to do, the Presidents’ Trophy goes to the team that managed to snag the highest points total in the NHL, something the NY Rangers are no strangers to. 

Since its introduction for the 1985-86 season, the Rangers have taken the award four times, including the 2023-24 season. They also took it in 2014-15, 1993-94, and 1991-92, and they are one of just three teams heading into the 2024-25 season to have won the trophy at least four times, alongside the Boston Bruins (four) and the Detroit Red Wings (six). 

Now, just because someone is the best team in the regular season, it doesn’t mean they will sustain that success in the playoffs, and just eight of the 37 winners have won it all. That said, the Rangers can say that they have, as the 1993-94 team pulled off the “sweep” and took both the Presidents’ Trophy and the Stanley Cup. 

NY Rangers unforgettable 2023-24 season ended with a Presidents’ Trophy

While fans of the NY Rangers would have rather seen their team win the Stanley Cup in 2023-24, and that’s understandable, the Presidents’ Trophy-winning group still did something that hadn’t been done in a while: They made it to their respective conference final. 

Between 2015-16 and 2022-23, not a single Presidents’ Trophy winner fared well in the playoffs and found themselves heading home after either the first or second round. Not only did the 2023-24 Rangers break that “curse,” they were also the last Presidents’ Trophy winners until 2023-24 to earn a trip to the Conference Finals in 2014-15, where they lost to the Tampa Bay Lightning. 

The 1991-92 team made it to the division finals, but they fell to a red-hot Pittsburgh Penguins team. But it wasn’t long until they won it again in 1993-94, and they didn’t just win the Cup that season; the Rangers also snapped what was a four-year drought of Presidents’ Trophy winners falling short of winning it all. 

Now that Rangers fans have seen the Presidents’ Trophy twice over the past 10 seasons, yet with no Stanley Cup to show for it, there is no doubt they’d like to see their team hoist the Stanley Cup while their championship window remains open. Should the Rangers repeat as Presidents’ Trophy winners in 2024-25 and win the Cup, they’ll be the first team to accomplish the feat since the 2012-13 Chicago Blackhawks. 

(Historical data provided by Hockey-Reference)