The game against Vancouver may have seemed meaningless at heart, but there was quite a lot at stake in the end. With essentially the worst possible scenario coming to fruition, the Rapids are in the playoffs but with a frightening amount of work ahead of them.
Losing 3-0 to the Whitecaps knocked them down to the 5th seed in the West, and also kept them at 51 points. That's still a record-breaking number for this team, but in this tight season, it has them tied for the second-to-last seed in the playoffs overall. That means road games. Lots of road games. If you aren't aware, the Rapids have been really, really bad on the road this year. They boast the fourth-worst road goal differential of any playoff team, and they haven't scored a goal on the road since their 1-0 win over LA in early September.
Again, if the Rapids end up hoisting the Cup this season, there's not a soul in this country that would be able to say they didn't earn it.
Am I saying all is lost? Hell no. If this team is healthy and gets a few lucky bounces (and doesn't start Nick Labrocca as a striker ever again) there's always a chance that another Cup could be on the horizon. I'm just saying that it's time to remember that at the start of this season, nobody expected we would even get this far. We may need to soothe our souls with that knowledge a bit if the tides turn the way they look likely to.
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Matt Pollard 