For the Hawks’ current NHL players, there’s no help coming as the calendar flips to 2025. They’ll have to somehow get through their remaining 44 games as competitively and proudly as possible.

The biggest thing the Blackhawks had to look forward to this season has come and gone, and it couldn’t have gone much worse.

The Hawks’ 6-2 blowout loss Tuesday at Wrigley Field turned what should have been the highest point in an otherwise inconsequential, unsatisfying season into the lowest point in retrospect. It was a debacle.

But there are still 44 games — more than half the NHL season — left to play. It will be a long, fruitless slog, but it will happen. In that sense, there’s a pretty clear answer as to where the Hawks go from here, literally at least.

But figuratively, emotionally and culturally, where do they go from here? That’s tougher to answer.

With the new-coach bump now as flat as the Illinois prairies, it has become increasingly clear that coaching isn’t why this team sits in last place. Luke Richardson’s coaching may have been a problem, but it wasn’t the problem. A coach more experienced than either Richardson or Sorensen might have been able to get slightly more out of this group, but not too much more.

It has also become increasingly clear that general manager Kyle Davidson’s offseason additions failed to improve this team as he expected. Any substantial judgment of Davidson’s overall work as GM can’t be made until seeing how the countless promising prospects he has drafted pan out, but he unquestionably has fallen short in that specific area.

The 2024-25 Hawks are what they are at this point, though. As captain Nick Foligno has mentioned several times, including Tuesday night, there is no help coming.

They will be sellers at the trade deadline, potentially dealing away pending free agents like Taylor Hall and Ryan Donato, certainly not acquiring any new players of note. And Frank Nazar, the one top-tier prospect who was NHL ready, has already been called up; there are no more Nazar-like moves coming in the next few months (before the college hockey season ends).

Michael Reaves/Getty Images

Speaking of prospects, Davidson and the front office will likely turn their attention more and more toward their development — away from this wreck of an NHL roster — as the season progresses, and fans would be wise to do the same.

The Hawks’ actual players, however, won’t have that option. They’ll have to somehow find ways to make the most of these 44 games and get through them as competitively and proudly as possible.

To do so, they’ll need to fix some underlying issues in their culture and collective work ethic — because while their lack of talent isn’t addressable, those things are. Foligno discussed that recently with the Sun-Times.

“The last few games, we haven’t really had the emotional attachment or focus that we need,” Foligno said Dec. 28. “That’s ignorant in a lot of ways, to be honest. That’s unacceptable in a room that has a lot of veteran players.”

Foligno mentioned how many Hawks veterans have been part of championship teams elsewhere but haven’t been able to bring those winning habits into Chicago. His theory is that on successful teams, individual off-nights can be covered up by teammates. But on these pitiful Hawks, there’s not enough support to enable that inconsistency.

“You don’t have a guy that will pick up the slack for you,” he said. “Here, everything is magnified. Every mistake you make usually ends up in the back of your net.”

He called for his teammates — and himself — to “start thinking, acting and approaching” every game as if they alone need to carry the team to victory. Is such a dramatic mindset shift realistically attainable? Probably not. But as the Hawks move forward despondently into 2025, anything is worth a try.

“Instead of being like, ‘Oh, poor me,’ do something about that,” Foligno added. “Say, ‘I’m going to be that guy that’s reliable and counted on every single time I’m on the ice.’”