The Chicago Blackhawks season came to an end on Monday night in St Louis, with a Game 7 loss in their opening round series against the Blues. Now, we wait and see what else ended with it.

An era? A dynasty? Something more? Or maybe just a chapter in an ongoing story, one that can’t end with a Cup parade every time even if it’s often seemed to.

The NHL is a far different league than it was before the 2005 lockout that wiped out an entire season and ushered in a new set of rules, and that makes it hard to put what the Blackhawks have done in historical context. In decades past, an NHL dynasty meant an unstoppable force, like the great Canadiens teams of the 50s and 70s. It was Al Arbour’s Islanders winning four Cups and an unthinkable 19 straight playoff series. It was the Gretzky-led Oilers powerhouse that followed them, one that won four titles in five years and only lost when it scored into its own net.

The Hawks, by comparison, have never even repeated as champions. They’ve won Cups in 2010, 2013 and 2015, making them the only team to win three titles in the post-2005 salary cap era. But they’ve also lost in the first-round three times since that first championship. Is that really a dynasty?

Well, yeah. In today’s NHL, it is. Because today’s NHL is designed to make it all-but impossible for the best teams to stay on top. There’s a hard salary cap in place, one that forces teams to stay under a preset budget. A good team can keep its core – the four or five players who define its identity – but they’ll become increasingly expensive, squeezing out the supporting cast that’s so crucial. Like a crab getting yanked back into the bucket, the NHL’s best teams are relentlessly pulled back to the pack. The system has resulted in an age of unprecedented parity and competitive balance, one that the league relentlessly promotes as a good thing.

Despite that, the Blackhawks have been able to keep winning. Not all the time, like teams could in the old days, but more than anyone else in the league could manage. Since emerging as a contender in 2009, Chicago have won 76 playoff games; the next best team have won just 54. They’ve got three Cups, while only one other team has even won two in the cap era. Hockey fans don’t argue about the era’s best team anymore, because there’s really no argument to be had. It’s the Blackhawks by a landslide.

And yet there they were on Monday, sent home in the first round by a longtime rival with a reputation for postseason failure. The title defense was over before it even really began.

So what happened? And more importantly, what happens next?

According to the standings, the 2015-16 Blackhawks were very good but not great. They got a career year from winger Patrick Kane, one that earned him the league scoring title and probably MVP honors too. Captain Jonathan Toews was still among the best even in an off-year, while goaltender Corey Crawford was excellent and newcomer Artemi Panarin ran away with the rookie scoring race.

The Hawks finished with 103 points, a mark that tied them with two other teams for the fifth best record in the league but was only good for third place in the Central Division. That isn’t unusual – Chicago have finished third or worse in their division in five of the last six seasons. They treat the regular season as tune-up time. This is a team that makes noise in the playoffs.

Except that this year, they didn’t. They drew a tough matchup against the 107-point Blues, and fell behind 3-1 in the series through four games. The Hawks fought back to send the series to a seventh game, one that saw the Blues score a late goal and then survive a Chicago rally that came within a fraction of an inch of tying the game. A 3-2 final sent the Blues on to round two, and the Hawks back home to pack up their gear.

For most of the league’s other 29 teams, a 100+ point season and a hard-fought playoff series would feel like some sort of success. But the Hawks aren’t most teams. Even factoring in fatigue – Chicago had played 65 playoffs games over the last three years, by far the most in the league – and the quality of their opponent, the Blues series was always winnable. It felt like the Blackhawks were going to find a way yet again, right up until they didn’t.

And so here we are. In Chicago, at least, this is what failure looks like.

Off the ice, it has to be noted, the Blackhawks’ season was even worse, with their reputation as the league’s model franchise taking several hits. Kane was accused of rape in the offseason; a lengthy police investigation resulted in no charges being filed, but not before he was paraded in front of cameras for an embarrassing training camp press conference. A minor league prospect faced felony charges in a revenge porn case, leading to questions over whether management had known about the case (the charges were later dropped). And just last week, Blackhawks’ forward Andrew Shaw was suspended for a crucial playoff game after being caught on camera using an anti-gay slur.

Three unrelated incidents, but each serving to tarnish the Blackhawks’ image as the team that could do no wrong. Combine that with a first-round exit, and you’re left with a season that many fans might rather forget.

And now, it’s tempting to go ahead and declare the Blackhawks dynasty over. It’s been a great run, the best we’ve seen in the cap era, but there’s just too many obstacles in the way for it to continue. Monday’s game seven loss was the last gasp, a proud champion sent home on its shield. This is the way the dynasty ends; not with a bang, but with two goalposts and a handshake line.

There’s just one problem: We’ve done all this before.

We did it back in 2010, when the Blackhawks won their first Cup, then immediately had to dismantle because of salary cap troubles. They were forced to dump a big chunk of their roster, including both goaltenders and future stars like Dustin Byfuglien and Andrew Ladd, and then they didn’t win another playoff round for two years.

We did it again in 2013, after the Blackhawks’ second title, when more veterans had to be shipped out. We did it in 2014, when another cap crunch loomed, and again during the 2015 playoffs, when the Ducks pushed them to the brink in the conference final.

We’ve all been the self-appointed coroner, pulling the sheet up and declaring the Blackhawks dead for years now. And every time we turn around, there they are, hopping off the gurney and heading off to go win another Cup.

And yes, this may the year that the pessimists are finally right. The Blackhawks really do seem to be facing a potential roster crisis. Toews and Kane are signed to long-term deals that carry the highest cap hits in the league, and for now they’re still worth it. Duncan Keith is about to turn 33, with a back-diving contract (one that would be illegal under current rules) still represents great value. But Marian Hossa is 37 and slowing down noticeably, and still carries a big cap hit for five more years, while 31-year-old Brent Seabrook’s massive eight-year extension hasn’t even kicked in yet. The team gave up several draft picks and prospects in an unsuccessful attempt to load up at this year’s trade deadline, so the pipeline of young talent is drying up.

So this is it. It has to be. The dynasty is over.

That’s the story and we’re sticking to it. And we’ll stick to it all through the summer, into next season, and maybe even right up until the Blackhawks are skating another Cup around a rink somewhere next June. And then, chances are, we’ll rewrite the whole story one more time, and start sticking to that one.

We’ll be right one of these days. We’ve had plenty of practice.