If you were asked to name the last 15 Stanley Cup champions, we’d wager most of you could meet the challenge. The images fly through your mind like the Cup Raise commercial. They’re indelible.

If you were asked to name the last 15 Presidents' Trophy winners, we’d wager you’d get, like, three or four, mostly because you said “the Red Wings” a few times; and then you’d cross your arms and leave in a huff muttering things about the regular season meaning nothing and “there’s a trophy curse anyway.“

To wit: Only eight teams since the award was handed out for the first time in 1985 have gone on to win the Stanley Cup, and two of them were the Red Wings (2001-02, 2007-08). Only 15 of the 28 teams managed to reach the conference final.

Which is to say that finishing first overall is a nice accolade that means absolutely nothing in the end, outside of the requisite home ice advantage bestowed upon a high seed.

Damien Cox of Sportsnet noticed this and wondered: In a year in which finishing No. 30 has been treated with some semblance of accomplishment, shouldn’t there be greatest incentive to finish No. 1?

From Sportsnet:

If the Presidents Trophy came with, say, an extra home playoff game in the first two rounds, well, then it would be a much greater prize, wouldn’t it? Instead, there’s as much or more focus on the battle for places 27-30, with the April 18 draft lottery the next big day for that group.

Don’t get me wrong – it was a blast watching the scoreboard on the weekend. But you do wonder if it could be even better if the fight for the top was really worth watching.

(An aside: For all the talk about changing the name of NHL Awards, can we flip the switch on "The Presidents' Trophy" like now? Not only because of the unnatural placement of the apostrophe, but because THE LEAGUE DOESN’T HAVE A FLIPPIN’ PRESIDENT ANYMORE.)

The “extra home game” idea is an interesting one, if only because to the victor should go the spoils: If the Presidents' Trophy team hosted the first three games of a series before the action shifted to the lower seed, not only would that be a tactical advantage but a playoff revenue windfall – literally stealing from a lower seed.

That’s a gloriously nasty concept.

But as a playoff purist who’d rather not see any further modification to perfection, let me put this out there:

What if the Presidents' Trophy winner was assured of the 15th overall pick in that summer’s draft?

The current model fills out the first round based on how far teams advance in the playoffs, with the Stanley Cup Finalists at Nos. 29 and 30. Putting the Presidents' Trophy winner at No. 15 maintains the integrity of the lottery field – such as it is – while giving the best team in the regular season a palpable reward for its efforts over 82 games.

Giving the Presidents' Trophy winner the No. 15 pick would also add a little more mustard to trading first-rounders at the deadline – wouldn’t the value of that pick increase if a trade partner knew there was a good chance that team could finish first overall?

We always talk about these carrots that the NHL refuses to dangle, usually due to a dedication to parity – like making regulation wins worth three points in the standings, for example.

This would be a carrot worth dangling: Encouraging teams to battle to the end in order to help their future.

Even this plan would have meant the 2007-08 Detroit Red Wings ended up with the Presidents' Trophy, the Stanley Cup and the No. 15 overall pick ... a.k.a. future Norris Trophy winner Erik Karlsson.

This would have been a cruel joke played on the rest of humanity, but hey, No. 1 deserves a little something more for the effort.

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