The Rank ‘Em Roundup is back with another five-game span and a new wrinkle added for our consideration: special teams! We’re starting with the St. Louis game all the way back on November 21st and ending with the shootout win over Buffalo on Tuesday. The Wings were 3-0-2 in this stretch, earning 8 out of 10 possible points in this stretch, but I don’t think the voting is going to be terribly positive for very good reason.
Every single one of these five games went to overtime. Detroit blew a third period lead in every. single. game. I don’t care who you are, that’s going to lead to some antsy voters.
Votes tallied as of late December 2nd
| Player | GP | Total Diff | Total Percent | Avg Diff | Avg Percent |
| Dylan Larkin | 5 | 700 | 88.94% | 140 | 93.69% |
| Pavel Datsyuk | 5 | 597 | 78.49% | 119.4 | 88.86% |
| Tomas Tatar | 5 | 580 | 76.79% | 116 | 84.52% |
| Brad Richards | 5 | 500 | 68.89% | 100 | 76.19% |
| Alexey Marchenko | 5 | 511 | 68.29% | 102.2 | 78.99% |
| Gustav Nyquist | 5 | 460 | 65.98% | 92 | 75.59% |
| Danny DeKeyser | 5 | 465 | 61.85% | 93 | 74.84% |
| Mike Green | 5 | 409 | 61.73% | 81.8 | 71.87% |
| Petr Mrazek | 3 | 179 | 60.98% | 59.67 | 64.61% |
| Darren Helm | 5 | 234 | 48.97% | 46.80 | 56.89% |
| Drew Miller | 5 | 197 | 46.29% | 39.4 | 48.75% |
| Henrik Zetterberg | 5 | 162 | 45.44% | 32.40 | 52.03% |
| Niklas Kronwall | 5 | 181 | 44.11% | 36.2 | 52.19% |
| Teemu Pulkkinen | 4 | 81 | 41.74% | 20.25 | 45.53% |
| Justin Abdelkader | 5 | 126 | 40.34% | 25.2 | 38.51% |
| Jimmy Howard | 2 | 33 | 39.58% | 16.5 | 38.23% |
| Riley Sheahan | 5 | 135 | 36.33% | 27 | 44.63% |
| Luke Glendening | 5 | 72 | 35.84% | 14.40 | 44.26% |
| Tomas Jurco | 1 | -19 | 29.59% | -19 | 42.02% |
| Jonathan Ericsson | 5 | -62 | 27.95% | -12.4 | 34.36% |
| Brendan Smith | 4 | -111 | 23.70% | -27.75 | 28.42% |
| Jakub Kindl | 1 | -10 | 23.08% | -10 | 44.32% |
Rank ‘Em Links
Game 1 (4-3 OTW @ STL)
Game 2 (3-2 OTL vs BOS)
Game 3 (4-3 OTW vs EDM)
Game 4 (2-0 OTL vs FLA)
Game 5 (5-4 SOW vs BUF)
The Awards
Rank ‘Em Ruler: Dylan Larkin once again ran away with the whole thing both in sheer number of upvotes and by average per game. With just 33 downvotes and more than 700 upvotes, the negatives were Larkin were almost certainly pretty much all angry opposition fans coming around to pooh-pooh his 3 goals and 4 points in this stretch.
Roller Coaster Tycoon: The only player on the lineup who alternated between positive and negative during this stretch was Jimmy Howard, who played just two games so I guess he wins this one. Zetterberg, Abdelkader, Miller, and Glendening each had a two-game stretch of minuses surrounded by pluses.
Mr. Meh: Riley Sheahan popped into this role by earning 360 total neutral votes. This one makes perfect sense. While Tomas Tatar and Gustav Nyquist were doing neat things, he was just kind of… there. Sheahan notched one point in five games but didn’t hurt the team, so he didn’t get as many votes.
The Pincushion: Brendan Smith played just four games, but won the negative vote differential by almost 50. I don’t think he was bad in this stretch, but the guy’s got a reputation to overcome and he certainly wasn’t good enough to start doing that. He was basically Mr. Taking-Up-Space.
Stealth Bomber: Alexey Marchenko continuously gets pretty positive votes, but the neutrals tend to knock him out of the contention for Rank ‘Em Ruler. If you don’t count the neutrals, Marchenko had a total positive vote percent of 91%. He’s definitely flying under the radar.
Working the Averages
Since not every game is voted on equally, let’s take a look at how everybody worked out by average rankings rather than totals.
| Player | GP | Total Diff | Total Percent | Avg Diff | Avg Percent |
| Dylan Larkin | 5 | 700 | 88.94% | 140 | 93.69% |
| Pavel Datsyuk | 5 | 597 | 78.49% | 119.4 | 88.86% |
| Tomas Tatar | 5 | 580 | 76.79% | 116 | 84.52% |
| Alexey Marchenko | 5 | 511 | 68.29% | 102.2 | 78.99% |
| Brad Richards | 5 | 500 | 68.89% | 100 | 76.19% |
| Gustav Nyquist | 5 | 460 | 65.98% | 92 | 75.59% |
| Danny DeKeyser | 5 | 465 | 61.85% | 93 | 74.84% |
| Mike Green | 5 | 409 | 61.73% | 81.8 | 71.87% |
| Petr Mrazek | 3 | 179 | 60.98% | 59.67 | 64.61% |
| Darren Helm | 5 | 234 | 48.97% | 46.80 | 56.89% |
| Niklas Kronwall | 5 | 181 | 44.11% | 36.2 | 52.19% |
| Henrik Zetterberg | 5 | 162 | 45.44% | 32.40 | 52.03% |
| Drew Miller | 5 | 197 | 46.29% | 39.4 | 48.75% |
| Teemu Pulkkinen | 4 | 81 | 41.74% | 20.25 | 45.53% |
| Riley Sheahan | 5 | 135 | 36.33% | 27 | 44.63% |
| Jakub Kindl | 1 | -10 | 23.08% | -10 | 44.32% |
| Luke Glendening | 5 | 72 | 35.84% | 14.40 | 44.26% |
| Tomas Jurco | 1 | -19 | 29.59% | -19 | 42.02% |
| Justin Abdelkader | 5 | 126 | 40.34% | 25.2 | 38.51% |
| Jimmy Howard | 2 | 33 | 39.58% | 16.5 | 38.23% |
| Jonathan Ericsson | 5 | -62 | 27.95% | -12.4 | 34.36% |
| Brendan Smith | 4 | -111 | 23.70% | -27.75 | 28.42% |
Observations
- Complaining about Jonathan Ericsson getting unfairly downvoted works, but not like I want it to! Riggy earned himself a +11 against St. Louis for strong PK and a +40 against Florida, partially because I whined in the comments about how he played well and didn’t deserve to be buried like usual. Then he went out in the Buffalo game and earned himself a -72, the worst single-game rating for any Red Wings player during this stretch.
- Henrik Zetterberg continues to lead the team in points and had 3 during this stretch, but his lack of goalscoring, mistakes on the power play, and uncharacteristically bad passes drove him into the negative in the last two games. He goes through stretches where he very quietly helps drive play, but when he drops off the level we’re used to seeing him at, it looks bad.
- Teemu Pulkkinen blasted an OT game-winner against St. Louis which disrupted space/time itself to earn a +156 rating. He spent the other three games he played earning a minus. Seems Pulkkinen’s lot in these things is to score a goal or GTFO. /
Ranking the Refs & Blash’s Class
| Player | GP | Total Diff | Total Percent | Avg Diff | Avg Percent |
| The Refs | 5 | -449 | 11.42% | -89.8 | 12.26% |
| Jeff Blashill | 5 | 231 | 44.84% | 46.2 | 54.02% |
The Refs earned a +8 rating in the game against Edmonton, only calling four penalties in that entire game and none past the 2nd period. Mostly that was two teams not really cheating and the refs staying the hell out of the way. Their worst voting performances were also their worst overall performances, as the Florida and Buffalo games nearly doubled the negative differential they earned against St. Louis and Boston.
Blashill usually pulls slightly positive results except when the Wings lose. He got a pass against Boston, still getting a +24, but the team only scoring once against Florida while blowing a third-period lead fell on him. Much of Blashill’s game-by-game voting is dominated by neutrals
Special Teams
| Player | GP | Total Diff | Total Percent | Avg Diff | Avg Percent |
| The PP | 5 | -250 | 22.11% | -50 | 22.34% |
| The PK | 5 | 216 | 50.30% | 43.2 | 55.80% |
A new feature of the voting has been the separate special teams for the Wings. Unsurprisingly, the power play got buried in a stretch where it went 2-for-13 (15%). Also unsurprisingly, the PP earned positive rankings in the only two games they scored.
On the PK side, they killed off 14 of 17 (82%) and fared much better in the voting. The same effect as with the power play happened here. Detroit pulled negative overall votes in the games in which they allowed power play goals and positive rankings everywhere else.
Forgive me if I’m being scandalous, but it would appear special teams voting is based heavily on special teams results.
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Our next segment starts tonight. We’ll see how things go in five more games. Arizona, Nashville, Washington, Montreal, and New Jersey lie ahead.
