Season Denouement: What Will Next Season's Marketing Be Now?

Not waiting for the season to be actually over to review it. Because that's how badly we want it to be over.

For the sake of consistency, we can't put too much stock in the end of this season if we didn't put too much stock in the end of last season. Because that "positive" feeling from the last eight games of last season turned out to not matter. But the Hawks definitely wanted you to think it did.

Based on those eight games, Sam Rinzel was going to win the Calder trophy this season. Based on those eight games, Frank Nazar was going to establish himself as a genuine #2 center in the league and earned himself the first contract extension for this generation of Hawks. Based on those eight games, Artyom Levshunov was going to be Victor Hedman on goofballs. Based on those eight games, Oliver Moore was going to make Ilya Mikheyev redundant (ok, this actually happened, but no one bothered to notice). And based on those eight games, Connor Bedard was really going to drive the bus, finally surrounded by some buddies who could speak his language.

That's what the Hawks sold all summer. That's what they sold all during training camp. So what will they sell this summer?

They're going to have get creative, because the warning lights that have popped up over the past month are more meaningful than the empty wins of last April. It's one thing for the Hawks to be bad. God knows we've developed an immunity to that. It's quite another for them to look like they absolutely cannot locate a flying fuck to give. And it's even more alarming to look like they can't be arsed after one or two practices when their coach is trying to get up their ass as much as he can.

All of this came after last April, where Connor Murphy and Ryan Donato felt the urge to have a players' meeting with two games left in the season in Pittsburgh because they felt that the kids, mostly these same kids, were not giving a shit then, either.

If the kids have tuned out Jeff Blashill, it wouldn't be hard to understand why. He plays a boring-ass style. He doesn't accentuate the strengths of these players, or supposedly what their strengths are (we'll come back to this in a second). He has drilled and drilled the basics to the point of inertia, so it seems. It may be too much, especially when there's no uptick in results to point to.

But it's only too much for a group of players who think they deserve better. They don't. What have any of them proven? Are any of them truly locked into their role for the next 10 years? Nazar is, and he's spent most of this season playing like he's already rich, which he is. Bedard is, and maybe that's why he's spent most of the time since coming back from injury in a "It's nothing to do with me, mate" mode. But the rest? What have you accomplished, Sam Rinzel? And you, Ryan Greene? What gave you the right to act as if your top six role is now divined? How far down this list should we go? Alex Vlasic? He's been the best d-man on the league's worst team. Congrats. Maybe they'll give you a fake locker in the atrium hall of fame for that one day.

Perhaps with the constant drumbeat from the organization that this season doesn't matter, next season doesn't matter, and probably the season after that doesn't matter, the entire team plays as if it has all the time in the world. That's all they've been fed, after all. They don't have to give a shit about a Monday night in April when the golf course and BBQs beckon in just a few days', because they'll only be judged on what they do in 2028. Right now? It's just playtime.

If that's the case, there's no coach that's going to get through to them, as the players think they're all made men without any actual making. Certainly Jeff Blashill isn't equipped to do that. While no one needs Kyle Davidson to go do a Kenny Williams on the postgame spread, perhaps shipping out Levshunov or Rinzel or Nazar (though that's probably impossible now) this summer would put someone, anyone on notice. That their performance now or next season does matter. That there are consequences, not just constant, rose-colored waves at a nebulous horizon.

“We don't want to finish where we finished this year moving forward. That's not what we're looking to do anymore … That can't happen again. We need to start moving up and onward.”

That's what Kyle Davidson said two seasons ago, after finishing 31st in the league. The Hawks have backed that up by finishing 31st last season, and will finish 31st this season. 17 regulation wins to 20 to, at most, 22. Maybe if there's no consequences above them, why would the players think there's any consequences coming for them?