2016 Weekly Update – July 19

• We followed our 3-game win streak by getting 5 points in the next 5 games.
• We just finished a 4-game home stand where we managed 4 points, and for which most of us expected 6-9 points. This made worse an already bad home record.
• The combined Away record of our 4 opponents for that home stand before it started was 3 Wins 14 Losses and 5 Ties.
• We have 3 Home losses and 2 of them gave our opponent their only Away win of the season so far.

Yet we stand in 3rd place, only two points out of first (although with games in hand).

In the PPG standings we have slipped to 5th place. I think we were as high as third in the PPG standings at some point but I don’t have a record of it. We were definitely in 4th place 2 games ago.
The PPG line is up to 43. When I started the thread it was at 38. We have a ~1.5 PPG cushion. When I started the thread we were in 6th and defined the playoff line so that’s an improvement but it would be nice to have more.
So, worse than we hoped, but better than some alternatives, including last year.

How we get to various point totals over the remaining 18 games:

If we keep ties to a minimum, we just need to go 2 games over .500 and we should be in good shape. But as ties go up so must the number of wins over losses

What’s Next
7 of our next 9 games are on the road. Between now and August 13 we will have a very good idea if our very solid road record is something real we can count on, or a flash in the pan. After that stretch we finish with 5 at home and 4 away.
What we are up against are 7 teams whose collective Home Record is 28-12-12 for 1.85 PPG. Put another way, opposing teams who have visited the 7 teams we are about to visit have managed only 0.92 PPG against them.
That doesn’t mean we’re destined to do that. We underachieved at home. We now have to overachieve on the road. But not by much if we take care of business at home starting now.
Let’s say we win both home games in this stretch against the Red Bulls and Colorado.
2-0-0 | 6 Pts | 3.0 PPG
Then we can go just
2-4-1 | 7 Pts | 1.0 PPG on the road
for a combined
4-4-1 | 13 Pts | 1.44 PPG in the 9-game stretch.
Then we would have 34 points with 9 to play and can see a clear path to the playoffs. But if we drop points against RB or Colorado, at home, the road games become more crucial.