Success like the Blackhawks had doesn’t happen often in the NHL

The Chicago Blackhawks won their first championship since 1961 when they hoisted the Stanley Cup in Philadelphia in 2010.

That championship was about more than just winning it all for that group of players. For a young team of future stars in the making, the Chicago Blackhawks were set for greatness.

Patrick Kane and Jonathan Toews were 21, Brent Seabrook was 24, and Duncan Keith was just 26. That first championship saw the Blackhawks win despite all their players being younger and still within the first five or six years of their career.

It was a lot of fun to watch, and now teams around the league are trying to replicate that success. The point of Chicago’s dynasty being so great is that it rarely happens. Yes, a team like Colorado might be an exception to everything we are about to talk about, but around the league in its entirety teams are not winning the same way Toews and Kane did.

Connor McDavid was swept, Austin Matthews couldn’t get it done in game seven, and countless other teams around the league have that one or two big stars, but they cannot win with them yet.

Not every franchise is going to win the Stanley Cup two or three years after drafting first overall, it just doesn’t happen. The only way to secure those big star players is through the draft, but if you are drafting that high you are not the best team in the league by any measure.

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The Edmonton Oilers sweep in the first round is not fun by any measure, but I mean sometimes teams need to stay the course before they are going to have that major break. Not everyone can win right away as the Blackhawks and Penguins did. Some teams end up being more like the Tampa Bay Lightning that stays calm through defeat and manages to get things done eventually.

I know that a lot of people are going to be calling for the Maple Leafs to trade away a few guys or even saying that Connor McDavid is not going to put up with losing like this forever, but at the end of the day, some teams are not going to be as lucky as others in the playoffs. It took Alex Ovechkin a long time to win the Stanley Cup, but he eventually did just that.

To all the Maple Leaf and Oilers fans out there, hang in there, your team will turn it around eventually. I guess at the end of the day that is what made the Blackhawks run so awesome, stuff like that just doesn’t happen very often.