Tosaint Ricketts picked a fine time to score his first goal for Canada — an injury time strike to rescue a 2-2 result against Ecuador. Trailing 2-1 at the 90-minute mark, Canada was desperate to push forward for the equalizer.

Coach Stephen Hart won’t have a lot of time to prepare his Canadian men’s national side for the June 1 friendly against Ecuador and the June 7 kickoff of the Gold Cup schedule. Hart named Canada’s 23-man provisional roster Monday; those players will be available for selection for the June 1 Ecuador match at BMO Field. From that, 20 will …

Canada’s Will Johnson scored the winner on a goalmouth scramble to give Real Salt Lake a 1-0 win over Chivas USA on Saturday, but the talking point of the game — indeed, the weekend of MLS action at large — will be yet another serious injury to a star player. This time, it was Javier Morales, RSL’s midfield sparkplug, who will miss months because of a fracture and dislocation of the left ankle after he was brought down from behind on a red-card worthy challenge from Chivas’ Marcos Mondaini.

It was a moment of brilliance. We can speak of David Ferreira, Chris Wondolowski and, yes, even Landon Donovan. But, is there a player in MLS who can carry a team quite like Javier Morales? The Argentine midfielder conjured a goal in the 89th minute, allowing Real Salt Lake to leave Mexico with a 2-2 draw against Monterrey in the first leg of the CONCACAF Champions League final.

It was played in an empty stadium in Antalya, Turkey. There was no television coverage. Fans had to follow the game through Sportsnet’s live chat or on Twitter. But this is what we know: despite coach Stephen Hart putting together a lineup that was heavy on European-based players, an MLS man got the goal that gave Canada a 1-0 win over Belarus in a friendly on Tuesday.

Javier Morales’ performance was judged to be superior to that of Javier Martina. The Real Salt Lake midfielder was named the MLS player of the week by the North American Soccer Reporters on Monday. Morales scored twice and set up another goal as RSL decimated the Los Angeles Galaxy 4-1, only adding to Rio Tinto’s reputation as being the toughest place for a road team to go in all of North American pro sports.

It’s become obligatory for every sports journalist to provide season previews for the league he or she covers. It’s automatic, and a great space killer! In that vein, The 11 presents its “waited until the last possible second before the regular season” season preview! Why the wait? Because it’s hard to figure out the East. The West? Wow, a lot of power and depth there. As for the East? Last season, New York and Columbus and six other mediocre to bad to awful clubs were in the conference. New York and Columbus left them all in the dust.

On Tuesday night, a preseason game between Sporting Kansas City and Real Salt Lake was abandoned in the second half because of what’s being described as an ugly brawl.

On a brisk but tolerable night at Rio Tinto Stadium in Sandy, Utah, Real Salt Lake was able to show what many had expected out of it coming into this CONCACAF Champions League Quarter-final matchup against the Columbus Crew. Its 4-1 victory showed the dominance over their opponent that many had expected given the relative stability of the two lineups.

The11 caught up with Will Johnson at Rio Tinto Stadium in Sandy, Utah, in the midst of final preparations with Real Salt Lake for the final leg of their CONCACAF Champions League Quarterfinal matchup against the Columbus Crew. We asked Will about the rumors swirling that FIFA may be set to grant CONCACAF a fourth spot for the 2014 World Cup in Brazil, and about Team Canada’s important summer this year in Gold Cup action.