Beyond the Box Score: Draft, depth and defense on display for SKC in Week 12

Win at home. Draw on the road. Whether looking back at the last week or past month, Sporting Kansas City has met the standard for success in the unpredictable gauntlet of Major League Soccer despite a roster decimated by injury.

On Wednesday, Sporting Kansas City dressed only six (out of the allotted seven) substitutes in the team's 4-2 victory over New England at Sporting Park. Three days later, only five players were available on the bench for Saturday's 0-0 draw at Seattle after Dom Dwyer was a late scratch and missed his first match of the season.

Dwyer joins a lengthy list of injured players for Sporting KC alongside Bernardo Anor, Marcel de Jong, Roger Espinoza, Mikey Lopez (on loan), Chance Myers, Paulo Nagamura, Ike Opara and Seth Sinovic. Add in the absence of Erik Palmer-Brown, currently on international duty with the U.S. Under-20 Men's National Team, and Manager Peter Vermes was left to rely on his squad's depth to secure back-to-back results against opponents sitting second in their conferences -- first snapping the Revolution's nine-game unbeaten run and then becoming the only team this season to shut out Seattle on their home turf.

Starters by team 2014-15

“It's tremendous," Vermes said as part of his postgame comments. "With all of the injuries we have and all the players changing, we walk away doing pretty well this week.”

The most recent pair of matches offered a stark contrast in the varying amount of roster rotation required over the course of a 34-game MLS season given the timing of injuries, call-ups and suspensions. No team in Major League Soccer has utilized more players in starting roles than Sporting KC since the beginning of 2014 - a total of 40 players - while Seattle and New England have enjoyed relatively smooth sailing with 21 different starters for the Sounders and 26 different starters for the Revolution over that same span, fewest of all clubs.

Despite this turnover in the lineup - including five starting goalkeepers -- Sporting KC is three games over .500 in regular season play since the start of 2014 and reached the postseason for a fourth straight year. The next five teams in the chart? A combined 40 games under .500 without a single berth in the 2014 MLS Cup Playoffs.

Sporting Kansas City's all hands on deck approach has given ample opportunities for newcomers, including three rookies taken in the first round of the 2015 MLS SuperDraft: Amadou Dia, Connor Hallisey and Saad Abdul-Salaam. The trio shared the field on both Wednesday and Saturday, marking the first MLS matches since Nov. 8, 2008 (Roger Espinoza, Jonathan Leathers, Matt Marquess) in which Sporting KC played three draft selections in the same game.

To date, 14 of Major League Soccer's 20 teams have called upon a total of 21 draft picks from the Class of 2015 for MLS minutes this season. However, Sporting Kansas City is the only club to play three of them at any point -- let alone in a single match -- during the campaign thus far.

For Abdul-Salaam, recalled on Tuesday from his loan as San Antonio's starting right back, his whirlwind week culminated with a 32-minute cameo as a right winger in front of more than 40,000 fans at CenturyLink Field on Saturday night. It marked the fifth largest regular season crowd in Sporting KC's 20-year history and the 12th with an attendance of more than 30,000.

Sporting KC is 0-9-3 in those dozen games; 10 of which have come on the road, including each of the last five such occurences in Seattle where the Sounders boast the best home winning percentage (.689, 60-21-22) of any team in MLS history.

Sporting Kansas City walked away having held Major League Soccer's top scoring team to a single shot on goal -- Seattle's fewest at home in the past three seasons -- in a defensive display indicative of the club's stingy status when it comes to stifling opposition opportunities. Sporting KC ranks first in MLS for fewest shots conceded per game (9.92) and fewest attempts on goal allowed per game (3.33) in 2015.

Both of Sporting's centerbacks -- each a native of of the KC area -- played leading roles in the clean sheet as Kevin Ellis' nine headed clearances and Matt Besler's seven aerials won were most among all MLS players in Week 12. Further up the field, Benny Feilhaber's 15 recoveries against the Sounders also led the League after the World Cup veteran contributed a goal and two assists against his former team mid-week.

On the opposite side of the ball, two Seattle midfielders deserve mention for noteworthy performances rarely seen during Major League Soccer's Opta era (2011 through present).

Most Touches - MLS Regular Season (2011-present)

Most Successful Passes - MLS Regular Season (2011-present)

Most Passes - MLS Regular Season (2011-present)

Saturday's scoreless draw extended Sporting Kansas City's unbeaten run to five matches, though the club remains winless versus the West in 2015 (0-2-4) and still in search of the team's first victory over Seattle since 2009. After prevailing 1-0 in the inaugural meeting, Sporting KC is 0-7-2 in the nine subsequent rematches under Vermes -- the longest winless streak against any opponent in club history.

Having completed the opening one-third of the season, Sporting KC's two losses through 12 games (4-2-6) amount to the second fewest all-time for the team at this point in the year behind only the historic 2000 season (10-0-2). The first of this year's two defeats came on March 14 to Western Conference leaders FC Dallas, who now make the return trip to Kansas City for Friday's marquee match-up at Sporting Park.

A limited number of tickets are available online at Ticketmaster.com and the first 10,000 fans inside the gates will receive a Sporting KC t-shirt courtesy of Mazuma Credit Union.