Hockey Wilderness Power Rankings: 12-2-2011

For the past two weeks, we have openly mocked the power rankings process that not only permeates the hockey world, but also the sports world. If you look hard enough, you can bet there are power rankings for the Swedish Lawn Golf league. If you run, or participate in, any sort of local sports league, may I suggest publishing a weekly power ranking for that league?

Imagine the high level debate, after a couple rounds, about which team is truly the better horseshoe throwers.

This week, we rank the NHL it terms of the most critical piece of information there is. Size. While you may have heard "size doesn't matter," you never go to the store and buy the smallest sub possible, do you? Didn't think so. At the same time, finding a strong, small player that can really play is a great find.

See how the brakes were thrown on right there at the end?

Make the jump for this week's power rankings.

Two weeks ago, we started with sweater numbers. Last week, we moved on to the Russian alphabet. This week, we look simply at the size of the defensive corps. In a twist, the teams with the tallest defensemen get only a secondary bonus.

Our power rankings this week start by ranking the teams in order of their shortest defenseman, the SDO score. The first tie breaker is the OVERCOMP score, showing how much the teams over compensate for small size by signing the biggest brute they can find. As a final tie breaker, each team is given a FTTY score, in which they are ordered by their lightest weight defenseman.

Jared would be so proud.

Eastern Conference

Roller coaster week in the East, as the Bolts regain control of the conference. The Hurricanes did not appreciate the change in ranking rules, and simply could not adjust fast enough to keep up. This change did, however, allow Maple Leafs to assert themselves, as well as the Canadiens. Any time the two most valuable franchises in the league do well, it is good for everyone.

Western Conference

The Predators hold fast to their top spot, showing that not only are the dominant in Russian, but also in tiny defensemen. The Flames, on the other hand, along with the Oilers, show their true power and fall to the bottom of the league. Six foot defensemen will kill you every time. Every GM knows that, and they ignored the rules.

Of note for Wild fans, the Wild moved up to second in the west on the back of Jared Spurgeon. If only the Isles had his true value, indeed.

What say you, Wilderness? Who ranks too high? Too low? Any ideas for how to rank them next week?