Both the Hawks and Kings seem better on paper than how they're actually performing, so I think you have to make questions about coaching at that point. Seeing how both of these teams just fired their coaches a dozen games into this year, I think they had the same conclusion. With that being said, both also have aging and expensive cores and the young supporting pieces aren't good enough to compensate for the core declining. I think it's most likely that both toil in mediocrity for quite a few years, with being borderline playoff teams.
The same thing will happen to the Penguins and Washington sooner than later, I think you can argue that you're seeing signs of decline from both of those teams, especially Pittsburgh. It's just the cycle of the NHL.