Another Comeback Draw

Last night's game looked much like Saturday night's game.  The Rapids went down in the first half, battled back in the second half, and split the points with a former manager.  To the team's credit, after the first 20-30 minutes they looked like the better team but once again poor marking in defense cost them.  We can't keep throwing away points, despite the result we fell back one more spot in the playoff race.

Random Musings:

• On the goal Orlando had a long throw-in.  6(!) Rapids tried to close down 2 Orlando attackers on the incoming ball.  Wilson actually got to the ball first and headed it, but it fell to an unmarked Torres who slotted it past Yarbrough.  Torres was Esteves' man, but Lucas was caught in no-man's land between Torres and Pato.  Pato would have been Abubakar's man but Lalas was one of those 6 who went for the throw-in, leaving Esteves in a bit of a no-win scenario.
• Max got his second start and still struggled, but at least last night you could see some of the things we saw back in the CCL.  He's not ready to be starting and its an indictment of our roster building right now that he's the best option, but there is potential there.
• The first 30 minutes the team was really struggling.  Lots of frustration and miscommunication.  Seems like Fraser got them settled at half because all the good chances in the second period were from the home side.
• Really Orlando didn't have any good looks all night, their goal had an xG around 0.1 and it was one of their best looks.
• For the third game in a row, and about 14 out of 18 this season, Colorado had a better xG than their opponent.  They're now the team with the worse Goals-xG in the league at almost 8.  We have to get better about finishing chances.
• Credit to Fraser for picking the right subs.  He inserted Barrios and Rubio, and the two of them set up Zardes for the goal.
• The "official" Bodmer Line is up to 1.53, but as I said on Monday I think that's soft.  If we aim for 48 instead of 44, we've got to play at 1.8 PPG the rest of the way.  For comparison we played all of last season at 1.794.  Essentially we need to find our 2021 form today and keep it through the beginning of October just to make the playoffs.
• To do that we have to start by beating the Galaxy on Saturday.  We haven't lost to them for a while, but anything less than 3 points and you can pretty much call this season done.

Man of the Match: Gyasi Zardes.  He still has work to do but this game was one of the few times he looked like he was earning his salary.  Got the goal and if it weren't for a great performance by the Orlando keeper he would have had one or two more.  He seemed less than excited about scoring though.