The Chicago Blackhawks have let the fans down this season

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.