Detroit won four of the five games in this look, so we get to see some pretty great numbers for people out there in this span. A 5-3 win against Ottawa followed by wins against Tampa and Toronto led into a 4-1 loss to Dallas that wasn’t as bad as the score indicated before a 1-0 victory over Washington on Tuesday night closed us out.
Again, what we do here is post a Rank ‘Em post immediately after every game giving people an opportunity to vote positive, negative or neutral (through abstaining). At the end of each of these looks, we tally the results to see how the fans are reacting to the players. To reiterate, neutral votes are taken as the difference between the maximum votes any single person received in a Rank ‘Em post and the total number of votes that person received. There’s always one person in each game who has no neutral votes because of this.
Votes tallied late on 11 November:
| Player | GP | Total Diff | Total Percent | Avg Diff | Avg Percent |
| Petr Mrazek | 3 | 554 | 95.59% | 184.67 | 94.30% |
| Dylan Larkin | 5 | 880 | 89.90% | 176 | 94.93% |
| Andreas Athanasiou | 2 | 375 | 89.20% | 187.5 | 96.27% |
| Jimmy Howard | 2 | 354 | 88.57% | 177 | 94.16% |
| Henrik Zetterberg | 5 | 710 | 75.15% | 142 | 87.75% |
| Danny DeKeyser | 5 | 646 | 69.50% | 129.2 | 79.51% |
| Mike Green | 2 | 253 | 65.06% | 126.5 | 90.30% |
| Alexey Marchenko | 5 | 541 | 60.00% | 108.2 | 72.82% |
| Gustav Nyquist | 5 | 422 | 56.04% | 84.4 | 69.93% |
| Tomas Tatar | 5 | 370 | 51.58% | 74 | 62.95% |
| Brendan Smith | 4 | 130 | 41.18% | 32.50 | 44.51% |
| Jonathan Ericsson | 5 | 192 | 40.89% | 38.4 | 55.32% |
| Niklas Kronwall | 5 | 267 | 40.69% | 53.4 | 52.51% |
| Riley Sheahan | 5 | 179 | 38.91% | 35.8 | 47.97% |
| Darren Helm | 5 | 193 | 37.33% | 38.6 | 50.16% |
| Jakub Kindl | 4 | 50 | 35.52% | 12.5 | 41.23% |
| Drew Miller | 5 | 152 | 34.06% | 30.4 | 47.98% |
| Teemu Pulkkinen | 5 | 130 | 33.37% | 26 | 45.01% |
| Landon Ferraro | 3 | 8 | 28.70% | 2.67 | 27.68% |
| Justin Abdelkader | 5 | -29 | 24.95% | -5.8 | 31.95% |
| Luke Glendening | 5 | -184 | 20.00% | -36.8 | 27.31% |
| Joakim Andersson | 5 | -215 | 16.63% | -43.00 | 22.23% |
Rank ‘Em Links
Game 1 (5-3 W at Ottawa)
Game 2 (2-1 W vs Tampa Bay)
Game 3 (2-1 OTW at Toronto)
Game 4 (4-1 L vs Dallas)
Game 5 (1-0 W vs Washington)
The Awards
Rank ‘Em Ruler – Dylan Larkin drove a total ranking differential of +880 in these five games, scoring two goals and an assist in that time while also experiencing his first ever NHL game where he ended up a negative on the official plus/minus ratings. Part of this is the love for new blood, but it’s hard to argue that Larkin isn’t significantly stirring the drink.
The “unnngh” Goalie Alliance – If you treat the two goalies combined as just the one position, the Red Wings‘ goaltending is the ruler in both raw thumbs up voting and also in percent of thumbs up votes received. Howard and Mrazek are pretty solid bets every game for the player of the game.
Roller Coaster Tycoon – This time we didn’t have anybody bouncing each game between positive and negative, but Riley Sheahan went -9, +195, +9, -18, and +2 to be the bounciest guy since Ales Hemsky.
Mr. Meh/Falling Stock – Once again Justin Abdelkader pulled this award for being the third-best guy on a line with Zetterberg and Larkin. This time it was close though, as Abby edged out Teemu Pulkkinen by a mere 11 votes for players who don’t drive thumbs up or down. On top of that, Abby had positive rankings in his first two games here and then went red for the final three. Seems fans are getting a little impatient with his little scoring slump.
Crash Override/Acid Burn – Joakim Andersson edged out Luke Glendening for least-popular Red Wings players overall in this five-game sample. Joker just didn’t seem to do a whole lot to make things look good while Glendening still drives a decent number of silent voters who like him.
Good Morning Sunshine – So people like Athanasiou a bunch, huh?
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 |
| Andreas Athanasiou | 2 | 375 | 89.20% | 187.5 | 96.27% |
| Dylan Larkin | 5 | 880 | 89.90% | 176 | 94.93% |
| Petr Mrazek | 3 | 554 | 95.59% | 184.67 | 94.30% |
| Jimmy Howard | 2 | 354 | 88.57% | 177 | 94.16% |
| Mike Green | 2 | 253 | 65.06% | 126.5 | 90.30% |
| Henrik Zetterberg | 5 | 710 | 75.15% | 142 | 87.75% |
| Danny DeKeyser | 5 | 646 | 69.50% | 129.2 | 79.51% |
| Alexey Marchenko | 5 | 541 | 60.00% | 108.2 | 72.82% |
| Gustav Nyquist | 5 | 422 | 56.04% | 84.4 | 69.93% |
| Tomas Tatar | 5 | 370 | 51.58% | 74 | 62.95% |
| Jonathan Ericsson | 5 | 192 | 40.89% | 38.4 | 55.32% |
| Niklas Kronwall | 5 | 267 | 40.69% | 53.4 | 52.51% |
| Darren Helm | 5 | 193 | 37.33% | 38.6 | 50.16% |
| Drew Miller | 5 | 152 | 34.06% | 30.4 | 47.98% |
| Riley Sheahan | 5 | 179 | 38.91% | 35.8 | 47.97% |
| Teemu Pulkkinen | 5 | 130 | 33.37% | 26 | 45.01% |
| Brendan Smith | 4 | 130 | 41.18% | 32.50 | 44.51% |
| Jakub Kindl | 4 | 50 | 35.52% | 12.5 | 41.23% |
| Justin Abdelkader | 5 | -29 | 24.95% | -5.8 | 31.95% |
| Landon Ferraro | 3 | 8 | 28.70% | 2.67 | 27.68% |
| Luke Glendening | 5 | -184 | 20.00% | -36.8 | 27.31% |
| Joakim Andersson | 5 | -215 | 16.63% | -43.00 | 22.23% |
Observations
While just three skaters ended up total negative in voting during a 4-out-of-5 wings segment, we have nine players who drove an average of less than 50% positive votes. I think this means a lot of guys are doing a decent non-flashy job that doesn’t inspire love or hate, but does more appreciation than anything.
Mike Green was 1-1 in regards to the standings during his two games, but people were very impressed with him in both contests. He adds a layer to the defense that’s been sorely missing with how well he moves the puck. Big things coming for him I feel.
Jonathan Ericsson and Danny DeKeyser is a popular pairing. Nice to see Riggy getting more positive reviews next to a partner who drives very positive results for himself.
Ranking the Refs
| Player | GP | Total Diff | Total Percent | Avg Diff | Avg Percent |
| The Refs | 5 | -450 | 12.97% | -90 | 13.72% |
Refs had a pretty brutal week in terms of making fans happy. I thought they did a worse-than-usual job in this bunch of games, so they deserve this scorn.
Blash’s Class
| Player | GP | Total Diff | Total Percent | Avg Diff | Avg Percent |
| Jeff Blashill | 5 | 343 | 49.31% | 68.6 | 62.69% |
We tried something new this go-round by adding voting for the coaching job (seeing if maybe we could improve on Glendening’s rankings maybe? Hell I don’t remember the reason). Blashill’s sacrificial line usage isn’t endearing him much and his performance against Toronto (which was a boring game) earned him a negative rating.
– – –
We’ve got another five games to go before we see you here again. LGRW!
