Thursday Roundup/'Hawks 5, Caps 0

[AP Recap - Game Summary - Super Stats]

Oy. The Caps picked a helluva time to lay an egg, eh?

I don't know where to start with last night's team effort loss, so I won't. The bottom line is simply that an already small margin for error is now tiny and approaching Martin St. Louis-sized - if you buy into this statistical model, the Caps now have a 17.7% chance to make the playoffs, with a 5-1-1 finish giving them only a 61.7% shot at the post-season.

Tomorrow night in Atlanta the Caps will try to get things back on track. Every game from here on out is more or less an elimination game - let's see how they respond.

Elsewhere 'Round the Rinks:

You know who hates Bill McCreary? I mean, besides everyone? The Sens and their fans.... I'd love to know which coach is the jackass who dropped the second quote in this article, especially in light of the fact that 14 goals in 21 games is a 55+ goal pace.... Everyone knows that Josh Godfrey has a bomb of a shot.... Finally, one year ago today we took Dave Fay to task for a questionably titled article that only got worse from there, smacked around the Dallas Stars' owner for an aggressive display of mock outrage and took a peak at the Vezina race, and two years ago today we previewed that night's Caps/Habs game and threw some nice little nuggets your way.

Daily Awards

• Hart: Jason Pominville (2G, 2A, +4)
  
• Ross: Jason Pominville (4 points)
  
• Norris: Mike Weber (+5, 5 hits, and in answer to your next question... Buffalo)
  
• Vezina: Nikolai Khabibulin (25-save shutout win)
  
• Richard: Henrik Zetterberg, Thomas Vanek (3G each)
  
• Calder: Jonathan Toews (G, 4 SOG)
  
• Aiken: Karri Ramo (L, 6 goals allowed on 31 shots against, 3 goal third period lead blown... thanks)
  

Moron, Err, More On Chris Rooney

Look, I hate whining about officiating (most of the time) - if a team puts itself in a position where a referee can decide the game, they often deserve what they get. I prefer holding players culpable for giving the stripes the opportunity to make the horrendous calls they so often make, so I'll leave the full-on ref bashing to others.

But I will point out that this isn't the first time this season that one of today's referees, Boston's own Chris Rooney, has, for lack of a better term, screwed the pooch (which shouldn't be surprising, considering that he has been calling regular season games since 2000 and, based on his performance, has gotten a chance to officiate all of three playoff games). A brief look at his 2007-08 greatest hits:

• December 11 - Rooney and Bill McCreary let things get way out of hand in a Pens/Flyers game.
  
• February 4 - Rooney's whistle is... somewhere other than in his mouth, allowing Phoenix to score in overtime to beat Colorado. "It was a ridiculous non-call and I'm upset," said Avs coach Joel Quenneville.
• February 10 - Rooney and partner Dan O'Halloran repeatedly botch the Avs/Wings game.
• March 8 - Today's game. Ugh.
  

As for Rooney's roots - he grew up in Beantown and "watch[ed] the Bruins all [his] life" - one of the more notable moments in his career came when he threw former Bruin Joe Thornton out of a game for checking-from-the-side... against then-Bruin Hal Gill... in Boston. Apparently "[e]veryone, including the league, later agreed referee Chris Rooney over-reacted."

Finally, while this next quote is a little older, it's classic Ron Wilson, so it gets included:

"No practice tomorrow -- what we'll do is maybe call a practice and practice our diving. I'm dead serious. Chris Rooney calls a penalty on us on an obvious dive from Paul Kariya, so if anything, it should cost Paul Kariya $1,000 [in a fine for diving] to win the hockey game. [The NHL] put out a memo on dives and divers, and he's right at the top of the list for taking dives. ... Plain and simple, that's a dive."

So that's a bit of the Rooney file. Take it for what it's worth... maybe more than he's worth as a referee.

Raise Your Hand If You're A Douche Bag

Thanks, Bill.

h/t Paul Kukla for the clip.