The expectations for the Chicago Balckhawks this season were that they would be a fun and competitive team, that ultimately fell short of the playoffs. This team has failed to be anywhere near that standard, turning this season into another disastrous mess.

This season was never supposed to be this bad.

It is easy to retrospectively pretend as though we all saw this coming. Maybe doing so even makes the pain a little less sharp. Telling yourself, “Yeah, I knew they would be the worst team in hockey again,” while possibly numbing, is also a lie.

You, me, everyone who was aware of what this team did in the offseason had higher hopes for this group.

While very few people projected the Hawks to reach the postseason, a season more similar to what Columbus has had was what we expected. We thought this was going to be a feisty, fringe playoff team for much of the season, that in the end would fall short, but show massive improvement over last season.

Boy oh boy, were we ever wrong.

This team is eerily reminiscent of last year’s pathetic group. The key difference? Last season the Hawks had a much worse roster, and that roster was obliterated by injuries in a way I’ve never seen in all my years watching pro-sports (not just hockey).

So how is it possible that the team this season has failed so spectacularly? Honestly, I don’t have a good answer.

It just feels like this team never fit together from the get-go.

It was like Kyle Davidson went grocery shopping and picked out a lot of ingredients that individually taste delicious, but when combined create something foul and unholy.

Each player brought in this past summer has been mostly fine, save for TJ Brodie who has been bad. Not as bad as people have described, but still bad.

But again, hockey is a team sport, not an individual one, and even though the new guys have decent stats, and they seem to be playing well in a vacuum, their presence has not led to any winning for the team.

That is where my concerns begin, and I’m sorry to ruin your day with negativity but this next point is devastating to me. This team has not gelled together well, and worse yet, the makeup of the roster will look pretty similar next season. Don’t believe me?

Think of it this way: here are the Hawks forwards who are under contract for next season…

Teavo Teravainen, Tyler Bertuzzi, Connor Bedard, Nick Foligno, Ilya Mikhayev, Lukas Reichel, Jason Dickinson, Frank Nazar, Colton Dach, Landon Slaggert.

That doesn’t include Ryan Donato who is still possibly a guy the Hawks resign. But lets say they don’t re-sign him.

Those are 10 forwards who will be here on the team next season. That means you have two available spots to improve this group. The defense is the same story, as Alex Vlasic, Nolan Allen, Connor Murphy, TJ Brodie, Louis Crevier, Kevin Korchinski, and Seth Jones (barring his movement at the deadline) will be here as well.

Sigh.

That means the reality is, this team is going to look very similar next season, barring some unforeseen trades or huge free agent signings.

While we all desperately want the Hawks to go sign Mikko Rantanen or Mitch Marner, those guys may never make it to free agency.

If I had to guess today, I would say that Rantanen is more likely to hit the open market, as I can’t imagine with the cap going up that the Maple Leafs would let Marner walk.

The only chance of that happening would be if they get humiliated in round one of the playoffs and he plays horribly, and I don’t think that will happen this season.

So, let’s say Rantanen hits the open market.

The Hawks will have to sell him on joining a young rebuilding roster, where he will carry an immense burden each night as the best player other than Bedard. If he’s seen much of the Hawks this season, I’m not sure he would opt for the Hawks over a plethora of other contenders who, thanks to the cap going up, will have plenty of space to afford to sign his contract.

If you miss out on those two A+ free agents, you will again, for the second year in a row, be looking at the B-level guys as your answer to improve this team.

Here are some of those names that I think could intrigue the Blackhawks this summer: Brock Boeser, Nikolaj Ehlers, Brad Marchand, Yanni Gourde, Brock Nelson, Sam Bennett, Alex Iafallo and of course…. Patrick Kane. While any one or two of those guys would be an improvement, they wouldn’t be a vast enough improvement to spark this team’s renaissance.

Culture is a bigger problem

That last point speaks to a much bigger problem. It is beginning to feel like no matter what the Hawks add to this group, they will inevitably fail. That to me screams culture problem.

There is a culture of losing, and a loser mentality that has permeated this team. Bedard looks despondent, and he hasn’t scored a goal, or recorded a point since returning from the break. It feels like every game that the Hawks play, they might as well begin the game down 0-3 on the scoreboard.

In my opinion, we need a really strong and influential coach to change the culture here and implement a system that the players believe in.

If John Cooper somehow becomes available this summer, I would move heaven and earth to sign him. But even if it isn’t Cooper, this team needs a veteran head coach to shake them out of their malaise and get more out of this group on a nightly basis.

The pressure will now be on Kyle Davidson to find his man after failing with Luke Richardson. If he doesn’t manage to do that, I think that he may be the next head to roll here, no matter how well he’s drafted. It is time to take a real stride to improve this team because currently it feels as though the rebuild will be never ending, and our suffering along with it.

I think that is where the pain comes from.

It’s finally hitting me and many fans that this team will only see its renaissance when the young players arrive and lead the charge. How close is that to happening? That’s up for debate. While some of those guys are here and playing well, like Frank Nazar, Colton Dach, Ethan Del Mastro and others, many are still years away. The hope is there on the horizon though, if you’re willing to allow yourself to hope for anything anymore with the Blackhawks.

There is hope but you got to be patient.

Out of nowhere this season Nick Lardis has potted 60+ goals! That is unbelievable production, and a clear indication that he is a gem in the Hawks system.

If we are looking for a player comparison, he reminds me a lot of Alex DeBrincat. Smaller guy with an absolute cannon of a shot, and an insatiable desire to score goals. Give me that immediately, please (remember to always say please and thank you kids). In a few years, having a line of Nick Lardis-Connor Bedard-Oliver Moore would be incredible.

You have your traditional scorer in Lardis, your lightning-fast playmaker/forechecker in Moore and your all-around superstar in Bedard. In a few seasons that could be dynamic, but that’s the painful part. It’s always “in a few seasons.”

Fans are not patient, and nor should we be.

We could all be gone tomorrow and nothing in life is guaranteed. I think it’s time that the hawks adopted a similar attitude. I think this team needs a big swing, and not just in free agency. Maybe it’s time to trade a few of our young players and draft picks to go get an A-level player to elevate this team next season.

All in all, the future remains bright while the present remains unbearable. But I’m tired of being told as a fan that the present doesn’t matter because the future will be so great. After all, nothing is guaranteed. All that is real now is that this team reeks, and they will finish as the worst or second worst team in Hockey yet again. You can look to the future for hope, but look to the present for reality.