Winnipeg Jets Failure Continues 15 Year Old NHL Curse For Stanley Cup

The Winnipeg Jets have just been knocked out of their round 2 Stanley Cup Playoffs by the Dallas Stars, which means just one thing: the President’s Trophy curse seems to be very, very real! The Winnipeg Jets managed to make it to game 6 against the Stars and even pushed the game into overtime, but finally the Stars took the cake, leaving the Jets with…regret for having done so well in the regular season?

Despite the Jets having scored 116 points in the regular season, bagging them their first-ever President’s Trophy, the Jets were knocked out of the playoffs in game 6 of their second-round series against the Dallas Stars. The game was heartbreaking and surprising for the Winnipeg Jets for a few reasons.

Goaltender Jake Oettinger worked like nobody’s business all season, managing to record a .909 save percentage and two shutout games, causing many fans and analysts to tout him as the starting goalie for Team USA in the 2026 Winter Olympics over Connor Hellebuyck. He’d even improved on it during the playoffs, with a .919% save percentage.

Further, Jets center and alternate captain Mark Scheifele played the Jets’ final playoff game this year just hours after learning about his father’s untimely passing and scored the only goal for his team. However, their efforts were just not enough to overcome a Stars team that has now made the Conference Finals for the third straight season.

The Winnipeg Jets have been eliminated from the playoffs, meaning another year of the "Presidents' Trophy Curse"

The last Presidents' Trophy winner to also win the Stanley Cup was the 2013 Chicago Blackhawks pic.twitter.com/ewKU5kkqmA

— B/R Open Ice (@BR_OpenIce) May 18, 2025

But life doesn’t always work out the way one might expect, and the President’s Trophy curse continued to haunt the NHL for another year. With the Winnipeg Jets just being knocked out of the playoffs, this marks the 11th year since it was last broken. It was last broken by the Blackhawks in the 2012-2013 season, where they managed to both win the President’s Trophy and the Stanley Cup in the same year, but coming out of both the regular and postseason on top seems to be a rare feat in the world of hockey.

History of the President’s Trophy curse that the Winnipeg Jets are the latest victims of

Of course, whether or not one might believe in a ‘curse’ is subjective, but here is a pattern that has managed to only be broken 8 times in the now 38 years of the President’s Trophy. So who were the teams who defied the odds? As mentioned, the last team who came out on top of the regular season and won the Stanley Cup were the Chicago Blackhawks. Then the Red Wings broke the curse twice, in the 2001-02 and 2007-08 seasons. The Colorado Avalanche (2000-01), Calgary Flames (1988-89), Dallas Stars (1998-99), Edmonton Oilers (1986-87), and New York Rangers (1993-94) have also managed to break the curse in their own time.

So, what did these teams manage to do that the Winnipeg Jets didn’t? Not much really; sure, it can be argued that the Winnipeg Jets lacked consistency in some games. Games 1, 3, and 4 of the series specifically didn’t go great, but still, they managed to get goals in and had two 4-0 wins in games 2 and 5. So, it is difficult to pin down their loss to one thing and consequently difficult to figure out the curse of the President’s Trophy.

One thing the Jets didn’t lack, though, was dedication. To have had Mark Scheifele score that lone goal in their elimination game after his personal tragedy is a moment so moving that even his on-ice enemy Jamie Benn, who had to pay a $5000 fine for punching Scheifele during game 5, took a moment to commend this player during the final handshake following the game. So, yeah, the Winnipeg Jets might be the latest victims of the President’s Trophy curse, but it’s not because of a lack of effort.

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