Welcome to Volume II of the D5 Power Rankings, a new feature we will premier this season so that league members can get mad at other people’s rankings of their teams and not just my own. Methodology is simple; each week I will send a poll to a select group of league insiders (aka people who have nothing better to do but fill out a street hockey survey every week), then I will collate their responses along with my own into these unified ranks. Rankers are asked to weigh both recent performance and playoff projections.
1) I Just Blue Myself
Previous Rank: 2 (up 1)
Average Rank: 1.2
Highest Rank: 1
Lowest Rank: 2
1st Place Votes: 4 of 5
Comments: Two wins and a league high +8 goal differential get them 4 of 5 1st place votes and the top spot in the rankings. Miles leads the league in scoring, Phelps continues to get pissed anytime he doesn’t notch a shutout and they’re getting balanced scoring up and down the lineup. That said, rankers are not particularly impressed with two wins over the two last place teams and want to see more before they go ahead and blow blue the way they apparently blow themselves. Yes, that was a dangling participle. No, that’s not a sex term.
2) The Narwhals
Previous Rank: 5 (up 3)
Average Rank: 3.4
Highest Rank: 1
Lowest Rank: 6
1st Place Votes: 1 of 5
Comments: One blown lead, one rousing comeback and one miraculous buzzer beating clear-turned-goal is apparently enough to impress power ranking voters who move purple up from 5th to 2nd in this edition of the ranks. Rookie of the year frontrunner Tom has been as advertised thus far and Corey has returned amazing value, but will they have enough secondary scoring to make a deep run? Rob Meehan, sending in his ranks while drinking shirtless somewhere in Arizona, certainly believes they will.
3) MelRose Place
Previous Rank: 4 (up 1)
Average Rank: 3.6
Highest Rank: 2
Lowest Rank: 6
Comments: Wes misses game one, they lose a tight one. Wes makes game two, they win by three goals. This is likely to be the story of their season. On the bright side if they keep winning Mel might hold off on her plans to mutiny DRo, and by hold off I mean she’ll do it in the offseason rather than trading him this week.
4) Hungry Hippos 2.0
Previous Rank: 1 (down 3)
Average Rank: 4.0
Highest Rank: 3
Lowest Rank: 5
Comments: The preseason frontrunner gets bumped down to #4 this week after losses to green and purple. Both teams are good but league insiders expected more from an on-paper dominant Hippos squad. They better improve quickly because, according to one ranker, “the alternative is that Popack and Ramy drafted and ran Black better than Hicks, an outcome that would send the league into an existential crisis.” Well said, anonymous ranker whose identity I will protect until my 7th pirate shot at Dorrian’s Friday.
5) Chili Peppers
Previous Rank: 3 (down 2)
Average Rank: 5.0
Highest Rank: 2
Lowest Rank: 7
Comments: They drop two spots although I’m not quite sure why; everyone knew they would struggle without Sam, he’s missed the first two games and they’re 1-1 with the loss being on a buzzer beater with just seconds left. Tarnow, Ryann and Nate have held the fort but they may face a tough road to the playoffs if Sam can’t come in and help them win some regular season games. He’ll make his season debut in tomorrow’s doubleheader.
6) Julie’s Football Club
Previous Rank: 9 (up 3)
Average Rank: 5.4
Highest Rank: 4
Lowest Rank: 7
Comments: Going to go ahead and take a very early victory lap on being the only person to rank orange top 7 preseason when everyone, including several actual players on orange (👀), felt they were a bottom of the barrel team (they had incredibly received 3 of 5 last place votes). I’m going to make another call right now: if Tash continues to play every game at forward, and 50% of them in many cases, she is going to win the ladies’ scoring title and have a legit chance to finish top 3 overall. Rankers remain split on the teams future prospects though. Pro: “it’s a strong goal-suppressing team, with Tash and Zisser as anchors, and there is enough depth up and down the lineup to get offense via committee.” Con: “Tash is a winner and Julie is a very good captain. I just don’t think they have the top end talent needed to compete for a title.” Amazingly the guy who wrote the pro comment ranked them 6 while the one who wrote the con had them higher at 5. No one knows what to make of this team but they are clearly better than expected.
7) Green Street Hooligans
Previous Rank: 6 (down 1)
Average Rank: 5.6
Highest Rank: 2
Lowest Rank: 8
Comments: Here’s a lesson my Soviet father taught me early on: life isn’t fair. This team was ranked #6 in the preseason poll, won both of their games thus far and still somehow went down in the ranks while both teams they beat polled ahead of them. Yehuda and Rich will no doubt continue to play the Rodney Dangerfield card all season and harp on getting no respect; we’ll see if it gets results. A doubleheader against red and blue tomorrow night will tell us a lot about what to expect from this group going forward. Also I would be remiss if I didn’t add that a) Rich was obviously the ranker who had them all the way up at #2 and b) he wanted me to add that “Herman is honestly such an asshole for ranking us so low to transport a teenaged girl safely in a post apocalyptic world. I honestly will never forgive him and we are going to prove him wrong by winning a lot of games this year.” Good to see they’re focusing on what’s important.
8) Medium Rare
Previous Rank: 8 (unchanged)
Average Rank: 8.2
Highest Rank: 7
Lowest Rank: 9
Comments: A 7-1 loss to blue bumped their goal differential from respectable to painful territory but a roster with this much talent should rebound at some point. The only question is who will be traded and who will be in jail by the time they do. My prediction is Source for both.
9) Shooting Blancs
Previous Rank: 7 (down 2)
Average Rank: 8.6
Highest Rank: 8
Lowest Rank: 9
Comments: People were confused going into the season by white’s roster construction. Two games in, they are even more confused than Simon trying to figure out what the league’s icing rule is after his 4th 8th joint of the day. If McCauley is out for the season the alarm bells are sounding and everyone on the roster will probably be up for grabs. There’s still enough time to turn things around but to paraphrase the great Yogi Berra, it’s getting late early for white. I for one hope they improve because otherwise we may never see Cara again and if that happens I will taunt Simon forever for that pick.