Good Monday morning Caps fans and happy November — hope you’re making the best of the falling leaves and falling temperatures this week.

It truly was a good Sunday night for Vancouver, as they dispatched LAFC TK and forced a decisive game three on Friday in Los Angeles. As a sign of how well things went, I started writing this column well before the final whistle. That’s a dominant performance.

LAFC got their licks in, particularly early in the second half, forcing Yohei Takaoka (and Bjorn Utvik) to make some truly massive stops. But a third goal quickly saw the air go out of LAFC’s tires.

I wrote at one point that, at some point, you have to step up and win one of these matches against big clubs if you want to be taken seriously in the league. The time has passed for moral victories.

Well, this surpassed merely stepping up — this is a club that has gone toe-to-toe with the number one seed over two legs and, you could argue, has shown more reason for optimism heading into the tiebreaking match (LA will naturally be favored as the home team).

Ryan Gauld was immaculate on Sunday, with the industrious Fafa Picault alongside him. The midfield was sharp, shutting down the center of the park and playing some truly impressive long balls to the spring the attack. And the defense kept a clean sheet which hasn’t happened much against playoff level opposition.

Takaoka deserves special mention. You need great goalkeeping in knockout competitions and the Caps haven’t seen Taka hit the match winning heights that Maxime Crepeau did while in Vancouver. Well, that wasn’t the case on Sunday, as he superbly denied Denis Bouanga 1v1 and made an even better reaction save moments later. Then, the Caps marched down the field and grabbed a third. Takaoka has been better this year but I don’t think we’ve seen him hit these heights — he should take a bow.

There are only two regrets. One, that this isn’t a two-leg aggregate series (which would mean the Caps would be headed to Seattle). And, two, that Bouanga wasn’t dismissed as he arguably should have been for a poor tackle on Stuart Armstrong.

Given the stakes, this was one of the best performances of the MLS era, bar none. Moreover, the confidence, flair and casualness shows this is a team intent on not stopping with one high profile win. The Caps have never had the aura of a big club in MLS and that’s largely due to management, not the players. But Fafa doing flicks and tricks, Ryan Gauld cooking defenders, Sebastian Berhalter looking splendid at right back? You would have thought they were the number one seed.

There certainly is work left to do in LA. A loss there would mean, I suppose, that this win would be, in a sense, a moral victory. But given the fairly dull performances from every other Western Conference playoff team not named LA Galaxy, a full strength Caps side, playing like this in big matches is a truly exciting thing. And, hey, based on the run of form the Caps are in right now, I don’t think LA is feeling comfortable at all about Friday. Who would have thought we’d be saying that as the regular season ended?

Shameless Self Promotion

AGR analyzes a superlative do-or-die match that helps the Caps get … another do-or-die match.

Best of the Rest

The Caps are feeling confident after game two and, honestly, who can blame them?

Elsewhere in playoff action, New York Red Bulls stunned the defending champion Columbus Crew, knocking them out in a dramatic shootout victory. Meanwhile, Seattle advanced after Hector Herrera was sent off for spitting at a referee.

Where does Vancouver FC go from here after their sophomore season?

Meanwhile, the CPL final will see Forge take on Cavalry this coming Saturday.