Red Wings Rank 'Em Roundup: Games 1-5
You may have noticed we're doing something a little different in postgames this season. Immediately after each game, we're posting a Rank 'Em post for you to vote on which players performed well and which didn't. So far we've collected over 16,000 total votes telling us what you all think of the players (and another several hundred answering the age-old Edison vs. Tesla issue).
After a five-game sample, I want to take a look at the trends and see what we've learned.Here's a total of all the votes for the players so far, ordered by the total vote differential (as of the morning of October 19th). The percent represents the how many of the votes for each player were positive compared to how many total votes he received:
| Player | Total Diff | Total Percent | Avg Diff | Avg Percent |
| Dylan Larkin | 1145 | 97.67% | 229 | 96.36% |
| Henrik Zetterberg | 1125 | 98.12% | 225 | 96.92% |
| Justin Abdelkader | 949 | 93.49% | 189.8 | 84.32% |
| Drew Miller | 665 | 90.70% | 133 | 85.72% |
| Mike Green | 555 | 81.08% | 111 | 79.27% |
| Gustav Nyquist | 550 | 80.97% | 110 | 77.21% |
| Luke Glendening | 525 | 85.43% | 105 | 78.46% |
| Petr Mrazek | 515 | 98.31% | 257.5 | 96.89% |
| Teemu Pulkkinen | 451 | 76.07% | 90.2 | 62.10% |
| Jimmy Howard | 447 | 85.76% | 149 | 73.12% |
| Kyle Quincey | 376 | 75.75% | 75.2 | 65.68% |
| Niklas Kronwall | 264 | 68.64% | 52.8 | 56.82% |
| Tomas Tatar | 256 | 67.44% | 51.2 | 62.13% |
| Jakub Kindl | 251 | 66.89% | 50.2 | 59.42% |
| Landon Ferraro | 250 | 70.97% | 62.5 | 68.90% |
| Riley Sheahan | 166 | 62.73% | 33.2 | 63.10% |
| Johan Franzen | 131 | 70.03% | 65.5 | 73.57% |
| Danny DeKeyser | 80 | 91.67% | 80 | 91.67% |
| Brad Richards | 72 | 55.19% | 14.4 | 48.73% |
| Tomas Jurco | 68 | 61.41% | 34 | 46.90% |
| Darren Helm | 5 | 53.16% | 5 | 53.16% |
| Joakim Andersson | -59 | 12.66% | -59 | 12.66% |
| Brendan Smith | -121 | 41.42% | -24.2 | 38.25% |
| Jonathan Ericsson | -196 | 36.46% | -39.2 | 32.74% |
Rank 'Em Links
Game 1 (4-0 W vs. Toronto)
Game 2 (4-3 W at Carolina)
Game 3 (3-1 W vs. Tampa Bay)
Game 4 (5-3 L vs. Carolina)
Game 5 (4-1 L at Montreal)
Standout Players
Dylan Larkin (5gp 2G 4A) - Larkin's worst game for voting was the loss to Montreal where he scored the Wings' only goal of the game and came away with a 98-9 thumbs up/down score.
Henrik Zetterberg (5gp 2G 7A) - Hank currently sits tied atop the league leaderboard for points with 9 in 5 games. The center of the only line consistently producing offense, Hank is also the only other player to have a voting differential over 1,000.
The Goalies (5gp 3W 2L) - Howard and Mrazek are a combined +962 in voting after 5 games, despite Howard being -58 in the voting for losing game 4 against Carolina. With how the Wings are getting outshot this season, a lot of credit goes to the goalies for getting them three victories.
Jonathan Ericsson (5gp 0G 0A) - It's not all rosy, as the resident defensive punching bag hasn't done nearly enough to start turning his reputation around as being a guy who doesn't deserve top pairing duties. Riggy actually earned positive rankings twice, but his worst single-game voting was a -85 for their victory against Carolina.
Brendan Smith (4gp 0G 0A) - Smith is another guy that the fans have lost patience with, especially after getting a brand new contract this summer. Smith's last game drew a -96 thanks to some truly awful play against Carolina. It also drew him the sit-down straw when DeKeyser returned
Working the Averages
Here's the same data, this time ordered by the average percent of positive votes for each game. This way we're correcting for a fairly wide variation in votes for each game:
| Player | Total Diff | Total Percent | Avg Diff | Avg Percent |
| Henrik Zetterberg | 1125 | 98.12% | 225 | 96.92% |
| Petr Mrazek | 515 | 98.31% | 257.5 | 96.89% |
| Dylan Larkin | 1145 | 97.67% | 229 | 96.36% |
| Danny DeKeyser | 80 | 91.67% | 80 | 91.67% |
| Drew Miller | 665 | 90.70% | 133 | 85.72% |
| Justin Abdelkader | 949 | 93.49% | 189.8 | 84.32% |
| Mike Green | 555 | 81.08% | 111 | 79.27% |
| Luke Glendening | 525 | 85.43% | 105 | 78.46% |
| Gustav Nyquist | 550 | 80.97% | 110 | 77.21% |
| Johan Franzen | 131 | 70.03% | 65.5 | 73.57% |
| Jimmy Howard | 447 | 85.76% | 149 | 73.12% |
| Landon Ferraro | 250 | 70.97% | 62.5 | 68.90% |
| Kyle Quincey | 376 | 75.75% | 75.2 | 65.68% |
| Riley Sheahan | 166 | 62.73% | 33.2 | 63.10% |
| Tomas Tatar | 256 | 67.44% | 51.2 | 62.13% |
| Teemu Pulkkinen | 451 | 76.07% | 90.2 | 62.10% |
| Jakub Kindl | 251 | 66.89% | 50.2 | 59.42% |
| Niklas Kronwall | 264 | 68.64% | 52.8 | 56.82% |
| Darren Helm | 5 | 53.16% | 5 | 53.16% |
| Brad Richards | 72 | 55.19% | 14.4 | 48.73% |
| Tomas Jurco | 68 | 61.41% | 34 | 46.90% |
| Brendan Smith | -121 | 41.42% | -24.2 | 38.25% |
| Jonathan Ericsson | -196 | 36.46% | -39.2 | 32.74% |
| Joakim Andersson | -59 | 12.66% | -59 | 12.66% |
Observations
Brad Richards may have more positive votes overall, but game-by-game, he's slightly underwater in terms of impressing the fans so far. Tomas Jurco is the only other forward below 50% here and you can see why we'd want to look at the average per game instead of total voting. He's an overall +68 thanks to receiving 221 of his 298 total votes in the game 3 win over Tampa. Unfortunately, his negative game against Carolina drew him only a 16.88% rating.
Drew Miller takes a lot of crap for being replaceable, but it's clear that the fans appreciate his defensive work for the team. He doesn't have a single game where his rating is negative (Though Ferraro brags that too and Glendening's worst showing was a -2).
Popularity-wise, I think the voting matches up pretty well for the defense between how well the blueliners have played and how their Rank 'Em Rankings work out. DeKeyser played solid in his one game and got skewed numbers and Mike Green still has that new car smell, but Kyle Quincey is the next-leading defenseman with a solid start. Kindl has flown generally positive thanks to his success again in sheltered minutes. Kronwall is again struggling with top-pairing responsibilities.
Ranking the Refs
Starting in game 3, we started adding the refs to the voting. I don't expect they'll get many games where they come out a positive, but it's been fun to look at.
| Player | Total Diff | Total Percent | Avg Diff | Avg Percent |
| The Refs | -233 | 23.82% | -77.67 | 20.23% |
20% approval rating for three games in which Detroit lost two? That sounds about right. Hilariously, more than half of the Refs' votes came in the game Detroit won against Tampa.
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We'll see you again after five more games to see how the Rank 'Em Ratings are going. LGRW