Good Friday morning Caps fans, hope you all are having a lovely week and are getting ready for the weekend and some well deserved time off.

The Caps saw out a professional 1-0 win over Pacific in the Voyageurs Cup on Wednesday, giving them a slim but significant margin for error heading into the home tie at BC Place next month.

While everyone involved would have liked to have seen a wider margin heading into leg two, the Caps were still good value for the win in the Ferryside Derby.

Sure, it wasn’t an all time great performance and there was one gilded chance that Vancouver was lucky Pacific couldn’t put away. But this was always going to be about making do in an ugly game, as Pacific are a defensively stout team who have trouble scoring, meaning they were always going to force the Caps to break them down.

The strategy had its moments but you could feel a goal coming even before Ryan Gauld’s expertly timed header clinked in off the upright. Brian White had a similar chance denied only by a fantastic Emil Gazdov save and the first half prompted a couple of Pacific goalline scrambles. The fact that they didn’t concede more is a testament to strong defending and their strategy of throwing themselves at every possible shot.

Luck wasn’t on the Caps side in this one either, as they were denied what looked to be an obvious handball in the box when Levonte Johnson came together with a Pacific defender. No VAR bailed out the home side, seemingly.

In any event, the Caps at least didn’t lose, unlike Toronto FC against Forge a few hours earlier. I’m going to try to refrain from dancing on TFC’s grave here, not because the loss isn’t funny, but rather because it would probably be wiser to wait and see how the second leg goes for Vancouver. I’ve been burned too many times by this club, clearly (but if you want to mock, I won’t stop you).

Now we have to wait over a month before getting a resolution to this tie, with Leagues Cup throwing a big ole’ wrench into the schedule.

In the meantime, Vancouver will head to St. Louis, who is enjoying a new manager bump after the Caps forced City to fire Bradley Carnel after their 3-2 home win a couple of weeks ago. Vanni Sartini, likely learning his lesson from leg two of the Cavalry tie, opted to play his first choice starting XI here (save Isaac Boehmer, who was excellent in goal and is not in fact Thomas Hasal, despite what I wrote in the preview). So look for some possible rotation because, well, at this point in the summer who doesn’t need a rest?

Shameless Self Promotion

Our post match recap runs down everything you might have missed from the midweek Voyageurs Cup adventure.

Best of the Rest

What has been Peter Schaad been up to in his post Caps life? A nice profile on the announcer.

Canada’s dream run in the Copa America was rudely ended by Argentina but Jesse Marsch believes its the start of something bigger.

With the U.S. Men’s National Team moving on from Gregg Berhalter, Marsch says he isn’t interested in jumping ship.

The Canadian MLS clubs are in transfer window weirdness, the federation says.

Meanwhile, Toronto FC and MLSE have moved on from Bill Manning after their cup loss.