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“It’s do or die,” defender Tim Parker told reporters Monday. “Maybe we haven’t been doing our job as of late, but right now it’s put up or shut up really. For us we either have to really show up on Wednesday and show what we’re about, or we go home.”

The disappointment of the draw to San Jose on Oct. 15 is still fresh for the Caps. The elation of Yordy Reyna’s calm completion of a beautiful tic-tac-toe off perfect passes from Cristian Techera and Jake Nerwinski 29 minutes into the game held until Chris Wondlowski back-heeled the ball into the Caps’ box and Valeri Qazaishvili split the defence of Kendall Waston and Marcel de Jong to slip the equalizer past goalie Stefan Marinovic 77 minutes in.

The game plan against San Jose is a simple one: play better defence, especially against those two, and finish more scoring chances.

“We have something to prove against San Jose,” Marinovic said Monday. “We dropped the ball a little bit last week and we definitely want to make up for that.”

Head coach Carl Robinson wouldn’t tip his hand over who will play goal Wednesday — Marinovic, who’s started five games this season including the past two, or veteran David Ousted — but was all smiles Monday, confident his players would be unfazed by nerves and enjoy the spotlight that’s about to shine on them.

“We’ve come so far, so now the fun begins,” he said.

“You can’t be afraid of it, you’ve got to embrace it. You’ve got to enjoy it and it brings out the good players.”

At least that’s what he’s hoping.

mikebell@postmedia.com

NEXT GAME

Wednesday

San Jose Earthquakes vs. Vancouver Whitecaps

7:30 p.m., B.C. Place Stadium, TSN 1, TSN 1040 AM

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