A terrible free agent market means another year of pain for the Chicago Blackhawks

The Chicago Blackhawks had plenty of salary cap space to make a major splurge in free agency. The front office decided that giving the young guys more of an opportunity was a better route to take.

Circumstances also dictated general manager Kyle Davidson's decision to sit out free agency to give his young prospects a clear path to ice time.

There was no one worth splurging on in free agency.

Superstars such as Mitch Marner and Sam Bennett never made it to free agency. Bennett signed an extension with Florida before free agency opened. Marner authorized a trade to Vegas and signed an extension.

Even aging stars like John Taveras chose to stay with the Maple Leafs rather than test the market. The unintended consequence of the salary cap going up was cap-strapped contenders suddenly had enough space to keep their stars.

The free agent well dried up quickly, and all that was left was trading for Sam Lafferty for what seems like the 20th time.

A bad free-agent class means another painful season to endure.

That is what hockey insider Frank Seravalli alluded to recently on CHSN. He also suggested the pain might be worth it since next year's draft is deeper.

Still, enduring all this losing has been rough outside of the 2022-23 season. Losing was worth it during that campaign. The Hawks won the NHL Draft Lottery and ended up with Connor Bedard. Plus, there was the Patrick Kane and Jonathan Toews farewell tour.

The 2023-24 season had the distraction of just watching Bedard impress in his rookie. When he went on injured reserve with a broken jaw for six weeks, that team was hard to watch.

This past season, the standards were supposed to be raised. Instead, it was more of the same. The organization makes it hard to be patient after going through a season where the team continued to reside at the bottom of the Central Division standings. The hope was to see some progress in the standings. Instead, it was another 31st-place finish in the NHL.

Losing is painful to endure in the short term if it is three straight years of being one of the worst teams in the NHL. Amassing all this first-round talent is great. It could mean the franchise wins the Stanley Cup by the end of the decade. Those kids are going to take some time to develop. It means another season of seeing a bad product with the hope that it will get good someday.

Maybe this upcoming season will not be as painful as the past three.

Bedard hopefully takes the next step in becoming a regular Hart Trophy winner. It sounds like he is putting in the work this offseason to get there.

Frank Nazar showed potential he could be an All-Star player in the NHL. He will be skating in his first full season next year. The baby blueliners have loads of potential, especially Sam Rinzel and Artyom Levshunov.

Spencer Knight is going to play a full season in net for the Blackhawks.

Once the Hawks started to play the kids more in 2024-25, the team played a much more excited brand of hockey.

Internal improvement is the only way the Hawks will move away from leading the Tankathon standings. There were no upgrades available outside of the organization to make a difference that would only cost the team money.