Before landing Bedard the Hawks have had four total draft picks in the top 5 over a span of 22 years since the year 2000 and we started being terrible in the late 90's, three 3rd overall (Barker, Toews, Dach) and one 1st overall (Kane). And, at the time, many had doubts about drafting Kane due to his size/bulk/etc, he wasn't anywhere near the consensus of a generational type like McD, Crosby, etc.
We knew we had some good players, that's it. No one knew when it came to the toughest games in the playoffs Kane & Toews had ice in their veins. Nobody knew Dave Bolland was just going to be a monster in the post season. Keith, a future Norris guy? Not when he was drafted, Seabrook was supposed to be a pretty good tough D, not a bonafide legit first pairing guy.
Then you sprinkle in a brilliant signing like Hossa, great move in trading for Sharp, and depth that was always above their place in the lineup?
That success was so much built on maybe partly the % of smarts but really a ton of luck. You just can't predict those guys would have turned out the way they did, not a chance. Nor could you predict the Hawks 3 cups back when Toews/Kane were drafted. The only prediction was that the team would start to make the playoffs and not be a total dumpster fire. Even in '09 I don't think anyone had the Hawks getting out of the first round.
So, for you to act like the league gifted the Blackhawks their recent success is way of line.
Who said anything about the league gifting anything? It's just random dumb luck and it's immensely frustrating for pretty much every single fan who isn't a Hawks fan.
The Hawks were an unbelievable well managed team. No one is diminishing their run. But most people probably believe, rightfully so, that without Patrick Kane lotto win, they probably wouldn't have won a single cup. But teams do win the lotto, it happens. It's fine. That's how the system works.
It just incredibly annoying to see the same team luck into such an incredible player twice in a short span.
....and four top 5 picks in the last 20 years? That's more than most get. The Blues have had 2 in that timespan. And prior to that, you have to go all the way back to 1979 to find the last time they had a top 5 pick. That's 3 in the last 44 years. In fact, in the 44 year span, they've picked in the top 10 only 5 times in total.
Is any of this luck? No, its the consequence of always having a pretty good, but not truly great team. So the reward for trying hard to always field a competitive team is being mired in mediocrity because you'll never get the chance to really get a superstar. And when some teams struggle and go through rough patches, they get rewarded with generational talents they can build around for a decade... and get rewarded handsomely for purposefully fielding terrible teams, while other bottom feeder teams that struggle to succeed never seem to catch the breaks. They get one or two chances at a good draft pick and end up with someone like Erik Johnson. Them's the breaks...
And that's a Blues fan perspective... there are other teams who have had a much much rougher go at it... so when you see the Blackhawks strike gold again, it's just very frustrating. It's annoying. I'm not mad at anyone, I know it's just random dumb luck...
Doesn't make it any less frustrating to see all of your rivals land all of these superstar players. It's just annoying as hell when your favorite team feels like it never gets the same level of players to build around and you're forced to always scrape together teams out of spare parts and scraps.
Building a winning NHL team is really freaking hard, and it's especially hard when you have to do it with nothing but late first round picks, free agency and trading... while you see all of these other teams land these unbelievably valuable assets through nothing but pure random chance... both through things like lotto wins, or being terrible at just the exact perfect moment in time.
The Blues have actually done fantastically well considering the poker hands they have been dealt most years. It just sure would be nice to be dealt a royal flush for a change, like the Hawks have now for the second time in very recent history.
I know it's all just sour grapes. But whatever... guess what... these grapes are sour.
They taste bad.
