After all, the Avalanche are parading the Stanley Cup through Denver on Thursday, a party befitting a championship team that went 16-4 in the Stanley Cup Playoffs.
The Tampa Bay Lightning are No. 2, another unsurprising nod by the 14 participating NHL.com writers and editors to the team that Colorado defeated in the Stanley Cup Final.
But where does it go from there in the final wrap-up of the season?
To create the NHL.com power rankings, each of the 14 participating staff members puts together his or her version of what they think the Super 16 should look like. Those are submitted and a point total assigned to each.
The team that is selected first is given 16 points, second gets 15, third 14, fourth 13 and so on down to No. 16, who gets one point.
Here is the final Super 16 of this season, encompassing regular season and postseason success and failures: