Luis Solignac is finally the poacher we were advertised

When Clint Dempsey originally joined the Seattle Sounders, his first bit of time with the team in 2013 was actually pretty inconsistent. I remember pretty clearly that fans around the league were reveling in Dempsey's not setting the world on fire with the Sounders, and I also remember keeping my own excitement tempered, because he was probably going to catch up with himself pretty quickly the following season. It's just what attackers coming to MLS in the middle of a season tend to do. Dempsey went on to score eight goals in his first five games in 2014 and has only moderately slowed down since.

Luis Solignac is no Clint Dempsey, but the point I'm making is a similar one: what Solignac did last season should be forgotten now that he's off the mark in 2015. You'll recall that Lucho was a highly-touted signing last season, expected to bring us some goals in the barren desert of the 2015 offense. You'll also recall that he did approximately none of that, instead ending up as the butt of most of the jokes directed at Pablo's wasteland attack.

The most confusing thing about it was that Solignac is a pretty proven poacher in his short career. Prior to joining the Rapids, he had scored 20 goals in 40 appearances for his Finnish club, and plenty of people were expecting big things that weren't to come.

Judging by the start to 2016, Lucho might well just be another one of the victims of that mid-season attackers curse that always seems to hit new MLS players. Through seven appearances -- it should be noted that those seven appearances included a slow start as well -- he has notched three goals and an assist, quadrupling his point count from a year ago. His poaching ability has been in full form so far in his goals this year, and remember that poaching is the classic tried and true formula to MLS goalscoring glory (See: Wondolowski, Chris). He might only be averaging just over half a goal per game (0.56 G/90, to be precise) but even half a goal per game is a magnificent improvement for a Rapids team that has stayed nearly as stringent defensively as they were the previous year. Combine that with a healthy Kevin Doyle (another poacher!), and who knows how many goals the suddenly rejuvenated Rapids offense can score?

People are talking mostly about midfield names like Jermaine Jones, Marco Pappa and Shkelzen Gashi when they talk about the Colorado Rapids' surprise revival over the past month, but if they're to keep going for the rest of the season, just as many eyes should be planted on No. 21.