Before the 2012 season began, I counted down the Top 10 keys to a successful season. Obviously, the season was anything but successful, so looking back at them is probably not going to be that much fun. Here's No. 6, finishing.
Hoo boy. This wasn't a fun one. Before the season, we noticed an unfortunate trend during the Hawaii Tournament and a few of the preseason games — the Rapids were taking a lot of shots, but weren't scoring a lot of goals. We were hoping that it wouldn't carry over to the regular season. We apparently were right to worry, as the finishing was pretty awful all season long.
Colorado increased their goal output from set pieces this season, but couldn't seem to figure out how to score from the run of play. Regularly, they would go through games holding 60% possession and putting 15 or more shots out, but only putting a couple on target and none in the net. Colorado was sixth in the league in shots and shots on goal, but were only 11th in the league in goals.
There was a bit of bad luck involved — I think the Rapids might have led the league with shots clattering the crossbar and posts — but when you have a bunch of your star players putting up such dismal numbers you're probably not going to do very well.
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Matt Pollard 