Inertia

Not sure what I or anyone else was expecting from the Hawks today. There isn't much out there and they're not interested.

“We want to take the next step here and progress,” Davidson said. “We don’t want to finish where we finished this year moving forward. That’s not what we’re looking to do anymore. It’s something we’re going to be conscious of moving forward. Hopefully we can see a little more success and some positive steps in the standings and on the ice here moving forward.”

That was what Kyle Davidson said after the 2023-2024 season. So in the following season, one that Davidson said he wanted to take the next step, the Hawks...

-Fired the coach that was supposed to bring that next step.

-Watched their franchise cornerstone go backwards in development.

-Kept their most exciting defensive prospect, at the time, in Rockford all season and accomplished nothing through it.

-Gained nine more points, and ended up in the top three of the draft again, which Davidson had said he didn't want to do anymore.

What's funny, is that A. Davidson doesn't seem to be held to the very standard he set out by either media or fans, and B. all of this would be livable if it didn't feel like the Hawks are headed right back to the top three of the draft come June 2026. That would be two seasons under the Davidson Standard from April '24. Nine more points isn't a complete step backwards, though it feels like one when Luke Richardson got fired so the Hawks could hire what feels like another bridge coach in Jeff Blashill.

But they did get Rinzel, Levshunov, and Nazar into full-time NHL roles, and important ones (for now). They have another goalie prospect in Spencer Knight, and no team can have enough of those until they figure out which one or which two or going to carry the mail long-term. It still sucks, but there were a couple crimps one could cling onto to stay on the wall if they wanted.

And yet, with the lack of really anything so far this summer, and the lack of anything coming as the Hawks want it known, it feels like 65-70 points is enough for next season. Is it? The Hawks improvement will hinge on getting plus-goaltending from two goalies who haven't really put up plus-goaltending yet in their NHL careers, and big steps forward from their young kids. Their young kids have not gotten any new support to take that next big step. Nazar may still have Teuvo Teravainen, which was the nitrous boost he needed at the end of last season. Who's going to boost Bedard? We know it's not Tyler Bertuzzi. It's not Andre Burakovsky, at least for the 55 games he's in a full body cast it's not. It's not Ryan Donato. It's not Ilya Mikheyev. These are third-line players for a kid who needs to play first-line hockey.

Let's circle back to this. We discuss a lot the perception that any rebuild needs five or six seasons of being ass before it can even be judged, instead of a mask or excuse for a rudderless team that it usually is.

The Senators and Sabres are the two ends of the spectrum that get cited when discussions of the Hawks come up. It's hard to gauge where to start the clock on any of them, because the Sabres clock has either never started or will never stop running, depending on your point of view. Where does the Sens comparison really begin? One way to look at it is that Tim Stutzle's rookie season was '20-'21, and two seasons later the Sens were collecting 86 points and waving at a playoff spot. The caveat there being how much it's thought that the Sens will evolve into a genuine Cup contender over the next few seasons. They look short of that.

The Maple Leafs have never missed the playoffs with Auston Matthews. They were only down bad for the two seasons before it. Jack Hughes was in his fourth season when the Devils piled up 112 points and won a playoff round. Anyone think the Hawks are winning a playoff round in 2027? Does it even sound like something they want to do?

Plenty of fans can make up their own lists of teams to disprove this. I think it's indisputable that this is an artificially slow timeline.

The reacquisition of Sam Lafferty is just paper-shuffling, and utterly pointless. This team is already lousy with veteran bottom-sixers who do not provide what the Hawks need right now. What they need is a winger who can be on Bedard's level and wavelength. They could use another winger for Nazar, given that we can bet that Teravainen will be shuffled all over the lineup as the coach's binky that he is.

If those are kids, fine. If that's Lardis and Frondell, great. Sink or swim, let's find out. Instead, the highway is jammed with broken down heroes on a last chance power drive. This is morass, meant to net yet another top five pick that can be put off for a season or two after he's taken.

The ultimate optimist would say that the Hawks can clear the decks next summer. Foligno, Dickinson, Mikheyev, Murphy, and the carcass of Shea Weber all come off the books, opening up just short of $25M in space. Names like Kaprizov, Necas, Eichel, and Robertson could be unsigned. But A. we now see that the exploding cap makes it easier for teams to keep their players, and something truly unique (like Marner) has to take place for them to be available and B. it's all window-dressing for when the Hawks sign an over-the-hill 34-year-old Artemi Panarin for far too much money because he's the one player the front office has heard of.

Davidson's own words should be what he is hanged upon. His own standards weren't met, and yet he has operated as if that doesn't matter. It apparently doesn't. We've heard no rumblings other than compliance and acceptance from Davidson's boss, Danny Wirtz. The turnstiles keep spinning, as the Hawks are among the leaders in attendance. Even their shoddy TV numbers can be explained away not by fan apathy but by organizational mismanagement. They won't conclude anything until after this season after returning to Comcast.

The Hawks are run like a team with no urgency and no pressure. It's exactly what they are.