Before everyone goes out to their Super Bowl engagements tomorrow I had planned to write a piece on PDO and who would be a prime candidate for a breakout right now. (Hint: focus was going to be Dave Bolland with a pinch of Bryan Bickell) After only one point gathered out of six over the past week that just didn’t seem like a good idea anymore. Instead, I’m just going to write a short post that sends you off to hopefully your very own snack stadium with just one request.

Don’t panic yet.

There indeed has been no shortage of angst among Blackhawk fans since the calendar turned over to 2012. A month in which they spent most of it on UC ice and failed to capitalize against some lesser competition will do that. Then heading out on to the road for nine games while triple sowcows are being done back home. It hasn’t been the best of stretches for the Men of Four Feathers. Nevertheless, the only thing that this has done is possibly force Stan Bowman to act a little quicker than he wanted to in making additions to this team. If you have any notions of this team not qualifying for the tournament that starts in April, I’ll gladly give you three to one odds on any amount you’d like to wager.

Barring major injury, there is next to no chance of that happening.

I don’t much care for what I see above neither. Sixth place in the West is not where I expected this team to sit with a little over 30 games to go in the season.

There. That looks a little better. The Hawks are still one of the most prolific offenses in the entire league. I feel like we need to be reminded of that from time to time. There are certainly questions about the defense and the goaltending and yes, they will require external solutions. If we look objectively at the recent losing streak we see that two came without Sharp, one without Toews, two fairly competitive games in Calgary and Vancouver with the only one we should really be turning our noses at is the debacle at Rexall Place.

The boys will come home and watch the Super Bowl in Chicago. There’s six more points to be had in Denver, Phoenix and San Jose. Come away with five of them and we’re right back on track. The teams behind the Hawks not named the Kings are likely to be selling off parts or simply aren’t quality of enough teams to really concern ourselves with. Instead, we should just be looking up and reeling in those ahead of us one point at a time. Thirty games to do it.

Oh, and go Pats. Can’t believe I said that but I don’t want to live in a world where Eli Manning is a two-time Super Bowl champ.

[greatest photo ever via]