30 luckiest sports franchises

13. Pittsburgh Penguins

The Pittsburgh Penguins have been one of the most dominant NHL franchises in the 21st century, with three Stanley Cups under their belt over the last eight years. But, especially with their most recent run, there was some lady luck on their side throughout.

To begin with an easy point, how much luckier can a team in the NHL get to land a guy like Sidney Crosby, and keep him tied up to the team for as long as the Penguins have over the last 12 years. He’s led the team since day one, been a captain for seemingly forever, and has brought the city three titles, averaging one every four years(!!).

Add in the loads of talent the team has been able to surround Crosby with, including Evgeni Malkin, Phil Kessel, Marc-Andre Fleury and countless others over the years, and they never seem to go wrong. But, in some cases, they got lucky with some draws of who they’d play in the playoffs, rather than the talent they got to put on the ice.

For example, let’s use this last Stanley Cup run, the team’s second consecutive run at the Cup. In that run, hockey fans saw the top-seeded Montreal Canadiens get taken down in the first round by the New York Rangers, the top-seeded Chicago Blackhawks in the Western Conference get taken out by the eventual conference champion Nashville Predators, and then the Rangers get taken out by the Senators as well.

While the Penguins still had an impressive run of their own, beating the Washington Capitals in the second round, it’s not too difficult of a run when you have the Senators in the Eastern Conference Finals, even if it does go seven games.

Obviously that’s how sports go half the time, and upsets are part of the game. However, luck is still a big piece of the equation, and it’d be interesting to see how the 2017 squad would’ve held up against the higher seeds in the Eastern Conference, or even the top-seeded Blackhawks in the Western Conference.