30 luckiest sports franchises

11. Carolina Hurricanes

The Carolina Hurricanes haven’t done anything recently in the NHL, but they had one of, if not the luckiest run in Stanley Cup history to earn their lone championship in franchise history.

Back in 2006, there were plenty of other talented teams in the NHL postseason, and it looked like the Hurricanes would have to have the run of their life if they were looking to take down even one of the teams in their way. Luck kicked in, and they essentially had a cake walk to their only title.

To begin, the Buffalo Sabres’ misfortune led to the Hurricanes benefiting, when the Sabres ran into serious injury issues on both sides of their game. Four of their best defensemen went down with injuries, as Teppo Numminen, Dmitri Kalinin, Jay McKee and Henrik Tallinder all found themselves struggling with injuries at one point or another, and sometimes all at once.

In addition to that, the team’s top power-play scorer, Tim Connolly, also went down with an injury, and the hobbled Sabres couldn’t match up well enough with the healthy Hurricanes, although the series still went to seven games.

As if the Sabres series wasn’t enough, the Hurricanes were matched up with the Edmonton Oilers in the Stanley Cup Finals, who had their starting goalie Dwayne Roloson go down in the series’ first game and wouldn’t return for the rest of the playoffs. That series still also went seven games, with the Hurricanes eventually coming out on top.

If not for the lucky bounces their way as far as their opponent’s injury issues go, we may have never seen the Hurricanes win a title in their franchise’s history.