DENVER (AP) — The Colorado Avalanche realize history isn't exactly on their side and they're just fine with that.
Fresh off winning the Presidents' Trophy, they now contend with this stat: Just eight teams since 1986 have earned the NHL's top overall seed and proceeded to capture the Stanley Cup title.
But that's not a sign so much as a reminder to keep them focused. The franchise is 1 for 3 in winning both — a cast led by Joe Sakic accomplished the feat in 2001 — with this one pending.
“I don’t know if history necessarily means anything,” Avalanche captain Gabriel Landeskog said after a 3-1 win over Calgary on Thursday night to clinch the top spot. “Listen, you’re trying to prove yourself every single day. There have been plenty of people and teams have done things that nobody’s done before, haven’t been done in a long time. So those things aren’t necessarily something that we’re thinking about much.”
The last time a team captured the Presidents' Trophy and then the Stanley Cup title was the Chicago Blackhawks in 2012-13. That season was abbreviated to 48 games because of a lockout. The last team to play a full 82-game schedule to earn the best record and then win the title was the Detroit Red Wings in 2008.
It's not like a team wants to avoid the top seed or anything. A Game 7 at home certainly could've come in handy last season when the Avalanche lost to the Stars in Dallas during a first-round series that went seven.
“You want home ice,” said defenseman Josh Manson, whose team is 25-9-5 at Ball Arena this season. “But you're going to have to do well home and away if you want to win the Cup. It’s just the way it goes.”
Landeskog, Nathan MacKinnon, Cale Makar and several others have been in this position before when they won the Presidents' Trophy in 2021. Colorado lost to Vegas in six games in the second round.
The Avalanche were up 2-0 in the series going heading Vegas and had a late lead in Game 3, only to see the Golden Knights rally for four straight wins.
“That was the lesson for us: You have a chance to step on a team, step on a team,” Landeskog said.
The following season they went 16-4 over their playoff run to hoist the Stanley Cup.
“Individual playoff runs and playoff series gives you lessons that can apply throughout your career, after the fact,” Landeskog said. “It had nothing to do with the Presidents’ Trophy that year (2021). It had nothing to do with anything but just some lessons here and there, some things you take from it. I think this group is more experienced than that one, hungrier than that one.”
Colorado has won at least one playoff round in all three seasons where it was the Presidents' Trophy winner. In 1996-97, the Avalanche reached the conference final before losing to Detroit — the eventual Stanley Cup winner — in six games.
Once the playoffs start, records of any sort no longer matter — a point of emphasis to coach Jared Bednar.
“This game has a way of humbling you if you don’t play your best hockey,” Bednar said. "If you’re not playing your best and you’re making too many mistakes, or you’re not dialed in as a group of 20-plus, then you can expect it to be a tough road.”
The Avalanche are getting closer to full strength, missing only Nazem Kadri (finger) and Makar (upper body). With four games remaining, Bednar will hold meetings and talk to the players about who needs rest and who may want to play.
MacKinnon is currently the league's goal-scoring leader with a career-best 52 this season. He's three goals away from tying Mikko Rantanen for the most in a season in Colorado history and five away from matching Quebec's Michel Goulet for most in franchise history.
On the team front, the Avalanche (114 points) have a chance at their first 120-point season. There have been only 12 teams that have reached 120 or more points, with the most recent being Boston in 2022-23. The Bruins won the Presidents' Trophy and lost in the first round.
“It fuels us knowing that we’ve won a lot of hockey games in a lot of different ways,” Landeskog said. "That’s important to remember. You’re not winning the Presidents’ Trophy if you haven’t been finding ways to win hockey games.”
AP NHL: https://apnews.com/hub/nhl
Colorado Avalanche center Nathan MacKinnon, front, puts a shot on Calgary Flames goaltender Dustin Wolf in the first period of an NHL hockey game Thursday, April 9, 2026, in Denver. (AP Photo/David Zalubowski)
Colorado Avalanche left wing Gabriel Landeskog, center, redirects the puck past Calgary Flames goaltender Dustin Wolf, left, after driving past Flames defenseman Yan Kuznetsov, right, in the third period of an NHL hockey game Thursday, April 9, 2026, in Denver. (AP Photo/David Zalubowski)
Calgary Flames left wing Victor Olofsson, front left, pursues the puck with Colorado Avalanche left wing Gabriel Landeskog (92) in the second period of an NHL hockey game Thursday, April 9, 2026, in Denver. (AP Photo/David Zalubowski)
DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP) — With the ceasefire in Iran still shaky, U.S. Vice President JD Vance headed Friday to Pakistan for high-level talks with Iranian officials, as Israel and Hezbollah traded fire and Tehran maintained its stranglehold on the Strait of Hormuz.
Many issues could derail the truce and the negotiations aimed at making a broader deal to stop the fighting permanently.
Iran’s semiofficial Tasnim news agency, close to the paramilitary Revolutionary Guard, claimed that the talks set for Saturday would not happen unless Israel stopped its attacks in Lebanon. And U.S. President Donald Trump said on his social media platform that Iran has no leverage except to restrict ship traffic in the strait, through which 20% of the world’s traded oil once passed.
Kuwait, meanwhile, said it was targeted by seven drone attacks since Thursday that it blamed on Iran and its militia allies in the region. Though the Guard denied launching any assault, it has carried out attacks across the Mideast in the past that it did not claim.
Preparations for the talks between Iran and the U.S. appeared to be moving forward, with Vance boarding Air Force Two for the long flight to Islamabad.
Elsewhere, negotiations between Israel and Lebanon were expected to begin next week in the U.S. capital, according to a U.S. official and a person familiar with the plans, who spoke on condition of anonymity due to the delicacy of the matter.
Before his departure, Vance said he believed the negotiations with Iran will be “positive.”
But he added, “If they’re going to try and play us, then they’re going to find that the negotiating team is not that receptive.”
In Islamabad, security forces locked down key parts of the Pakistani capital, erecting barricades along routes from the airport to the city before the delegations arrived.
The Iranian delegation led by Parliament Speaker Mohammad Bagher Qalibaf arrived early Saturday in Islamabad, Iranian state TV reported. The delegation included security, political, military, economic and legal teams. The report said negotiations will begin only if the other side accepts Iran’s preconditions.
Hours earlier, Qalibaf posted on social media that two points that he said had been mutually agreed on — a ceasefire in Lebanon and the release of blocked Iranian assets — have yet to be implemented.
“These two matters must be fulfilled before negotiations begin,” he wrote.
Israel’s insistence that the ceasefire in Iran does not include a pause in its fighting with Hezbollah has threatened to sink the deal. The militant group joined the war in support of its backer, Iran.
The day the truce was announced, Israel pounded Beirut with airstrikes, killing more than 300 people, according to the Lebanese Health Ministry. It was the deadliest day in the country since the war began Feb. 28.
Trump said Thursday that he had asked Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to dial back the strikes.
Then on Friday, Israeli warplanes struck near a state security office in the southern town of Nabatieh, killing 13 officers, according to the Lebanese presidency. Israeli forces said they also hit about 10 rocket launchers in Lebanon that had fired toward northern Israel.
A day earlier, Netanyahu said he authorized the negotiations with Lebanon with the aim of disarming Hezbollah militants and establishing relations between the neighbors, which have technically been at war since Israel was established in 1948.
The Lebanese government did not respond.
In a first statement since Israel announced direct negotiations with Lebanon, Hezbollah chief Naim Kassem urged Lebanese officials to stop offering “free concessions,” but he did not take a clear stance on the talks.
Two days after Israel's intense barrage, people sifted through the wreckage of their homes, trying to salvage furniture and personal mementos. Some expressed gratitude that they did not lose loved ones.
“There is no substitute for family,” said Wissam Tabila, 35. “Everything else can be replaced.”
Iran’s closure of the Strait of Hormuz has sent oil prices skyrocketing, driven stocks down and roiled the world economy. Tehran's control over the waterway has proved its biggest strategic advantage in the war.
The spot price of Brent crude, the international standard, was around $97 Friday, up more than 30% since the war started.
Before the conflict, over 100 ships passed through the strait each day — many carrying oil to Asia. With the ceasefire in place, only 12 have been recorded passing through.
Trump said Iran has little clout in the negotiations.
“The Iranians don’t seem to realize they have no cards, other than a short term extortion of the World by using International Waterways,” Trump posted Friday. “The only reason they are alive today is to negotiate!”
Questions also remain over the fate of Iran’s missile and nuclear programs, which the U.S. and Israel sought to eliminate in going to war.
The U.S. insists Iran must never be able to build nuclear weapons and wants to remove Tehran’s stockpile of highly enriched uranium, which could be used to make them. Iran insists its program is peaceful.
Trump has said that the U.S. would work with Iran to remove the uranium, though Tehran has not confirmed that.
More than 3,000 people have been killed in Iran, a top Iranian officer told the state-run Iran newspaper. Iran’s government has not provided any definitive death toll from the war.
In Lebanon, more than 1,888 people have been killed and 1 million have been displaced. Over a dozen people have died in Gulf Arab states and the occupied West Bank, while 23 civilians were killed in Israel. Thirteen U.S. service members have been killed.
In other developments, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said Ukrainian forces shot down Iranian‑designed Shahed drones in several Middle Eastern countries during the Iran war. The missions, carried out with domestically produced interceptor drones, were part of efforts to help partners counter the same weapons Russia uses in Ukraine, he said.
Mednick reported from Tel Aviv, Israel. Associated Press writers Chan Ho-him in Hong Kong; Zeke Miller, Matthew Lee and Will Weissert in Washington; Hannah Schoenbaum in Salt Lake City; and Kareem Chehayeb and Hussein Malla in Beirut contributed to this report.
Vice President JD Vance walks to speak with the Press before boarding Air Force Two, Friday, April 10, 2026, at Joint Base Andrews, Md., for expected departure to Pakistan, for talks on Iran. (AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin, pool)
A Lebanese civil defense worker, right, stands with a resident at the site of a building destroyed in an Israeli airstrike a day earlier in central Beirut, Lebanon, Thursday, April 9, 2026. (AP Photo/Hassan Ammar)
A Lebanese civil defense worker looks on as an excavator operates on the rubble of a building destroyed in an Israeli airstrike a day earlier in Beirut, Lebanon, Thursday, April 9, 2026. (AP Photo/Hussein Malla)
A woman carries a flag of Lebanon's militant Hezbollah group during a ceremony marking the 40th day since the death of Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei in Tehran, Iran, Thursday, April 9, 2026. (AP Photo/Vahid Salemi)
A poster is pasted on a motorbike windshield with graphic depicting Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Mojtaba Khamenei as government supporters gather to mark the 40th day since the killing of his father, Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, in Tehran, Iran, Thursday, April 9, 2026. (AP Photo/Vahid Salemi)
People residing in an underground shelter pack up their belongings as they prepare to leave after the announcement of a two-week ceasefire agreement between Iran and the US, in Tel Aviv, Israel, Thursday, April 9, 2026. (AP Photo/Ohad Zwigenberg)
Mourners carry the coffin of Mohammad Zein al-Abedin Shehab, who was killed in an Israeli airstrike a day earlier, during his funeral procession in Beirut, Lebanon, Thursday, April 9, 2026. (AP Photo/Hassan Ammar)
Displaced families extend their hands while waiting for donated food beside the tents they use as shelters after fleeing Israeli bombardment in southern Lebanon, in Beirut, Lebanon, Thursday, April 9, 2026. (AP Photo/Emilio Morenatti)
