Rapids Throw Away Chance To Move Into Playoff Position

There was a chance for Colorado to jump to 6th and solidly in a playoff spot with a win last night.  Instead they showed up flat with a questionable lineup and instead their opponents, the Whitecaps, are now in a playoff spot after a 2-1 win.  The loss turns this Saturday's game against Houston into a huge must win for the home side and even at that point they're going to need to pick up some surprise results on the ensuing East Coast road trip.  This was a significant setback for a team that seemed to be heading the right way over the last few matches.

Random Musings:

• I raised my eyebrows when I saw both Max and Vallecilla in the lineup when Abubakar and Priso were available.  Its possible that Fraser was concerned about Abubakar being one yellow from suspension with the big match this weekend, but Max was a very questionable start, as we'll see.
• I was happy we got through the first 10 minutes without giving up a goal finally, only to give one up 3 minutes later.  The sequence started with Vallecilla making a poor choice to play the ball back to Yarbrough when he had no outlets.  Instead of launching a long ball Will had Wilson come closer and played him the ball.  Danny, with his back to the field and a Whitecap on him tried to get the ball out side to the only option he could see, Beitashour on the touch line.  Unfortunately he didn't get enough on it and Beita made no effort to come to the ball.  That made an easy interception and immediate goal opportunity for Vancouver and we were down 1-0.  Playing it out of the back is fine, but somebody on the defense needs to recognize when there's no play and just boot it long to remove danger.  Nobody did on this one.
• The rest of the half was pretty ugly for Colorado.  They only managed one shot on target in the half, and spent most of the time just trying to move the ball up the field as they had no ability to break through the home side's press.
• Once again we gave up a goal in the last 5 minutes before half.  This time Max played a lazy ball back in the general area of our central defenders, but not to either one of them.  Had Wilson read the ball as soon as it left Max's foot he probably would have gotten to it, but it took him a second to realize that while it wasn't going to him, it also wasn't going to Vallecilla.  At that point it was 50/50 at best if he would beat Gauld to the ball and he made the right choice in staying back rather than trying and failing to get to the ball first, which would have led to a 1 on 1 with Yarbrough.  Sadly though, Gauld had a head of steam, and lets be honest Wilson isn't fast, so even staying back he was unable to stop Gauld's run and goal.  Really though, he takes very little fault for the goal, the mistake was Max's.
• The second half was more of the same, until the last 15 minutes.  Suddenly the Rapids that we needed to see from the start of the game showed up.  They were aggressive, they attacked Vancouver's goal, and Zardes got a goal and hit the post on a second opportunity.  It shouldn't take going down and hitting crunch time before we start playing though.
• A lot of the positive play we saw in that last 15 minutes was due to the introduction of Priso.  Compared to the non-entity Max was Priso clearly needs to be getting all of the minutes when Price and Acosta aren't available.  He had a good argument for man of the match despite only playing 10 minutes.
• With this draw the Bodmer Line is back up to 1.44 points per game.  Realistically though we need to get to 47-48 points, so we're looking at more like 1.8 pts/game to have a good playoff chance.  Last year we played at 1.79 pts/game.
• That means we probably need at least 6 points from Saturday's home game against Houston (12th place) and our 3 game road trip through Philly (1st place), Nashville (8th place) and DC (12th place and last overall in the league).  Given that we have 1 road win this season, its hard to expect any on that road swing, even against DC, which means 3 points this weekend is an absolute must.

Man of the Match: Jonathan Lewis.  Any dangerous chances we had before Priso entered the match came through Lewis, and while he struggled on his crosses through most of the game he kept Vancouver on their toes and mad them work to keep him from causing those dangerous chances.  In the last 15-20 minutes he was finally finding those crosses and probably should have had an assist or two if we could have finished.