Yeah, but most people expected St Louis to be pretty good this season based on the talent on their roster.
They went into a spiral and have corrected. Which isn't to say they're world beaters, but a solid playoff team was kinda what most people had pictured for that lineup before they went off the rails. They're only now putting things together and reaching that potential or expectation
Nobody felt the Blackhawks had a sniff of the playoffs, and if not for half of the Western Conference imploding, they still wouldn't. It seems a larger stretch that a bad team would figure things out, than a pretty good team that had a bad run would figure things out.