Last time we did a Rank ‘Em Roundup, we were looking at a team that was 3-2 in the standings with still a lot of positivity in the fanbase. The last five games gives us a different picture, as the Red Wings went 1-3-1 in that span. As I’m writing this, Detroit is coming off a pretty good looking victory over Ottawa on Saturday night, but the votes are still collecting on that game, so we’re not including that one in this roundup.
We did something slightly different this time around than the previous. First off, we randomly ordered the players just to see if perhaps some guys were getting shafted by being too high or low on the initial ranking. Second, we included neutral votes for the ranking. Since the way we do Rank ‘Ems only gives a thumbs up or thumbs down option, we derived neutral votes from the difference between each players’ total votes and the highest number of total votes received by any one player.
It’s not perfect but neither are you. Quit judging.
Votes tallied as of Sunday, 1 November.
| Player | GP | Total Diff | Total Percent | Avg Diff | Avg Percent |
| Jimmy Howard | 2 | 198 | 93.81% | 99 | 93.43% |
| Dylan Larkin | 5 | 542 | 81.38% | 108.4 | 87.54% |
| Henrik Zetterberg | 5 | 521 | 79.86% | 104.2 | 83.31% |
| Petr Mrazek | 3 | 310 | 79.36% | 103.33 | 78.35% |
| Alexey Marchenko | 3 | 264 | 69.41% | 88 | 87.40% |
| Danny DeKeyser | 5 | 312 | 58.34% | 62.4 | 66.21% |
| Tomas Tatar | 5 | 257 | 56.69% | 51.4 | 57.78% |
| Gustav Nyquist | 5 | 154 | 49.52% | 30.8 | 48.67% |
| Drew Miller | 5 | 217 | 47.86% | 43.4 | 62.07% |
| Mike Green | 2 | 57 | 46.34% | 28.5 | 46.50% |
| Teemu Pulkkinen | 5 | 70 | 42.07% | 14 | 50.59% |
| Tomas Jurco | 2 | 13 | 40.00% | 6.5 | 39.64% |
| Jakub Kindl | 4 | 13 | 38.12% | 3.25 | 41.37% |
| Brendan Smith | 4 | 31 | 37.37% | 7.75 | 45.50% |
| Kyle Quincey | 2 | -27 | 34.84% | -13.5 | 35.05% |
| Darren Helm | 5 | -8 | 29.52% | -1.6 | 37.10% |
| Luke Glendening | 5 | -74 | 27.03% | -14.8 | 34.99% |
| Landon Ferraro | 3 | -59 | 23.54% | -19.67 | 32.43% |
| Niklas Kronwall | 5 | -197 | 20.97% | -39.4 | 24.80% |
| Riley Sheahan | 5 | -181 | 18.90% | -36.2 | 23.58% |
| Joakim Andersson | 4 | -145 | 18.51% | -36.25 | 21.83% |
| Justin Abdelkader | 5 | -157 | 18.21% | -31.4 | 25.03% |
| Jonathan Ericsson | 5 | -299 | 14.48% | -59.8 | 17.37% |
| Brad Richards | 2 | -108 | 5.44% | -108 | 5.44% |
Rank ‘Em Links
Game 1 (3-1 L at Edmonton)
Game 2 (3-2 OTL at Calgary)
Game 3 (3-2 OTW at Vancouver)
Game 4 (3-1 L vs. Carolina)
Game 5 (3-1 L vs. Ottaway)
The Awards
Rank ‘Em Ruler – Dylan Larkin drove more thumbs up than your favorite gladiator after losing a match. Despite just one assist on the eight measly goals the Wings scored during this shitshow of a sample, Larkin kept the fans happy. Seriously, the kid’s got one gear when he gets on the ice and that gear is called “fuck you give me my puck.”
Roller Coaster Tycoon – Niklas Kronwall alternated negative and positive rankings each game, pulling negatives for Edmonton, Vancouver, and Ottawa while getting positive rankings against Calgary and Carolina. As you can see in the chart above, he was overall highly negative, but nobody bounced around more than Kronner.
The Oopsie-Daisy Flowerpot – Petr Mrazek had two highly positive starts (a loss to Edmonton and overtime win against Vancouver) sidled down by the first negatively-ranked game for a Red Wings goalie this season. Of course, this was the game things were going fairly well against Carolina where Mrazek handed the Canes the first goal of the game, so it’s not like it wasn’t deserved.
Sir Not-Appearing-in-this-Film: [Redacted]
Mister Meh – Justin Abdelkader was the single-most ignored player in the voting this week. If you took the difference between max votes for any player and the amount one guy got per game, Abdelkader was left off a total of 304 ballots. Taking a non-vote as a neutral vote, Abby drew about 42% non-committal responses. I think a big part of this was him being invisible on an otherwise good line. Harder to give him a minus when his teammates are driving the play. Darren Helm was second here with about 40% neutral voting.
The Buried Part of the Totem Pole – For the second straight Rank ‘Em Roundup, Jonathan Ericsson finds himself the least popular member of the Red Wings in terms of raw voting. He wasn’t good in this five-game stretch, so it’s not like it’s totally unfair that he gets thumbs down like an army of Little Jack Horners.
Working the Averages
Like last time, we looked at the averages to see if we could flatten out the overall total effects that were caused by some games garnering many more votes than others. Here’s how that looked:
| Player | GP | Total Diff | Total Percent | Avg Diff | Avg Percent |
| Jimmy Howard | 2 | 198 | 93.81% | 99 | 93.43% |
| Dylan Larkin | 5 | 542 | 81.38% | 108.4 | 87.54% |
| Alexey Marchenko | 3 | 264 | 69.41% | 88 | 87.40% |
| Henrik Zetterberg | 5 | 521 | 79.86% | 104.2 | 83.31% |
| Petr Mrazek | 3 | 310 | 79.36% | 103.33 | 78.35% |
| Danny DeKeyser | 5 | 312 | 58.34% | 62.4 | 66.21% |
| Drew Miller | 5 | 217 | 47.86% | 43.4 | 62.07% |
| Tomas Tatar | 5 | 257 | 56.69% | 51.4 | 57.78% |
| Teemu Pulkkinen | 5 | 70 | 42.07% | 14 | 50.59% |
| Gustav Nyquist | 5 | 154 | 49.52% | 30.8 | 48.67% |
| Mike Green | 2 | 57 | 46.34% | 28.5 | 46.50% |
| Brendan Smith | 4 | 31 | 37.37% | 7.75 | 45.50% |
| Jakub Kindl | 4 | 13 | 38.12% | 3.25 | 41.37% |
| Tomas Jurco | 2 | 13 | 40.00% | 6.5 | 39.64% |
| Darren Helm | 5 | -8 | 29.52% | -1.6 | 37.10% |
| Kyle Quincey | 2 | -27 | 34.84% | -13.5 | 35.05% |
| Luke Glendening | 5 | -74 | 27.03% | -14.8 | 34.99% |
| Landon Ferraro | 3 | -59 | 23.54% | -19.67 | 32.43% |
| Justin Abdelkader | 5 | -157 | 18.21% | -31.4 | 25.03% |
| Niklas Kronwall | 5 | -197 | 20.97% | -39.4 | 24.80% |
| Riley Sheahan | 5 | -181 | 18.90% | -36.2 | 23.58% |
| Joakim Andersson | 4 | -145 | 18.51% | -36.25 | 21.83% |
| Jonathan Ericsson | 5 | -299 | 14.48% | -59.8 | 17.37% |
| Brad Richards | 1 | -108 | 5.44% | -108 | 5.44% |
Observations
Brad “Stop Calling me Mike” Richards looked like crap in a game where everybody else looked like crap too and then didn’t get another chance to not look like crap. Sometimes crap happens.
Just 9 of 24 players averaging better than 50% positive votes will happen in a span of five games where the team wins only one. Despite how I think voting tends to work from biases, it’s honestly hard to argue that the nine guys who made the cut (Howard, Mrazek, Larkin, Zetterberg, Miller, Pulkkinen, Tatar, DeKeyser, Marchenko) were undeserving.
I can’t explain my personal feeling why Joakim Andersson probably got treated unfairly, but I thought he was pretty good in a 4th line role over the 4/5 games he got into here.
Ranking the Refs
I screwed up and didn’t put the refs on the ballot for the Edmonton game, so we only have a 4 game sample here.
| Player | GP | Total Diff | Total Percent | Avg Diff | Avg Percent |
| The Refs | 4 | -279 | 11.31% | -55.8 | 17.05% |
Surprisingly, the officials aren’t popular when the team is losing. Also not popular when they don’t call obvious headshots or they let goofy late-game interference penalties kill any chance of a comeback after having swallowed their whistles for most of the game.
– – –
We’ll be back around after the next five-game sample is over. We’ve already got one of those games in the voting right now, and it has the Wings off to a stronger start, so that’s nice.
