Playoff Race Status - October 1

A mostly good weekend of results for the Rapids leaves the standings looking like this:

Vancouver's and Dallas' losses really put them behind the 8-ball, but San Jose has jumped up to be the biggest threat with their win.  Still the Rapids have control and the other teams have to hope they (or LA) stumble.  Colorado's magic number to clinch is 9, so that's winning 3 of 4 or having the trio behind us dump an equivalent number of points (9 for San Jose and Vancouver, 8 for Dallas).

Even though we have 3 of our 4 games against Vancouver and San Jose, 2 wins or 2 wins and a draw isn't enough to clinch a playoff spot on our own, no matter what combination of games gets us there.  That said, 2 wins gives nobody room for error.  That would put us at 51 points, with Dallas being eliminated if they don't win every game and Vancouver and San Jose being eliminated with 1 loss or 2 draws.  Given that we can only get to 2 wins by giving one (or both) of those final two teams a loss that puts us in good shape.  LA faces the same dilemma we do, so that's one more team that would need to get results to leave us out of the playoffs.

So this weekend's game against Seattle isn't critical but we can really turn the screws on the rest of the conference with a win.  We can't afford to lose to San Jose next Wednesday if we lose though, so our goal this week needs to be at least 3 points.  2 might do it but I wouldn't want to risk it.  The other games we care about:

Saturday:
Dallas @ FSL: Again, I refuse to root for FSL even if its probably the best result, so go Dallas!

Sunday:
Chivas @ LA: I suppose a Chivas result is too much to hope for here.

Portland @ Vancouver: Vancouver losing is best, but it means there will be almost no chance to catch Portland for 3rd place.  Maybe a draw wouldn't be horrible?

Wednesday the 9th:
Vancouver @ Seattle: Obviously we want a Seattle win.