30 luckiest sports franchises

25. Chicago Blackhawks

The Chicago Blackhawks struck a gold mine when it comes to talent on an NHL roster, as they locked up Jonathan Toews, Patrick Kane, Marian Hossa and plenty of others for multiple Stanley Cup runs over the last decade. Unfortunately, it took a fortunate pick of a ball in the draft lottery to make it all happen.

The Blackhawks weren’t always the dominant threat in the Western Conference that plenty of teams in the NHL fear, and it took them performing poorly for a year to even make their dynasty come to fruition.

The team earned back-to-back top three picks in the NHL Draft in 2006 and 2007, but the second was far more lucky, and far more important in the franchise’s history. The second year had them with just an 8.1 percent chance of gaining the top pick for the 2007 NHL Draft, with Kane as the top prize for whatever team had their ball picked in the tumbler at the Draft Lottery.

Fortunately for the Blackhawks, they bounced all the way to the first overall pick, went on to pick Kane in that year’s draft, and the rest is history.

Since that draft, the Blackhawks have won three titles with Toews and Kane at the helm in their lineup, and surely aren’t done there. They were the Western Conference’s top seed in this past postseason, but fell to a hot Nashville Predators team before they could get anything going in the playoffs.

The team has proven that they’ll be around for years to come, but needed some solid luck to make this dynasty what it currently is today.