The White Sox are looking for pitching if the Blackhawks thing doesn't work out (Brian Kersey/Getty Images North America)

Brendan Shanahan has decreed Daniel Carcillo must serve a 7-game suspension once he recovers from the knee injury he sustained while railroading Tom Gilbert on Monday night.

Whatever. As annoying as it is to watch the people who were looking for reasons to hate Carcillo from the second he signed gloat, there is absolutely nothing you can say to  justify the hit he put on Gilbert. The puck was about 3 feet away from the contact point and his hands came way, way up. Worse yet, he injured his own knee on the play.

The Hawks are still uncertain how much time Carcillo will miss, but it’s likely to be a considerable amount  - perhaps the rest of the season.

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Is Carbomb’s Blackhawks career in jeopardy? It totally depends on the extent of his knee injury. If he misses the rest of the season, he would be a Free Agent who has a 7 game suspension hanging over his head. The Blackhawks would move on as the season progresses and Carcillo could find himself looking for a home at the end of the year. If the knee injury isn’t as bad as feared, it’s not very difficult at all to imagine circumstances where he plays again for the Hawks.

Think about it. It could be that the youngsters disappoint, it could be that the Hawks are struggling and need a spark, injuries could strike the rest of the team. It could be the case that they view him as superior to other 4th line options on a playoff roster, after all, they think he is good enough to play Top-6 minutes.

There is no question Carcillo messed up. He “used the boards as a weapon” and could have injured Gilbert badly. He deserves the sentence handed to him by Shanahan.

But the rush to write his Blackhawks obituary seems a tad premature – if his knee still works, that is.