The Ducks held their annual fan appreciation day Sunday, handing out 1000’s of presents, from a new car to crew jerseys and reward playing cards. But the one prize the Ducks’ long-suffering followers actually wanted, a playoff berth, remained just out of attain.

Needing a win to clinch a postseason berth for the first time since 2018, the Ducks misplaced a sloppy 4-3 additional time resolution to the Vancouver Canucks, the NHL’s worst crew, leaving them a level shy of the playoffs with two video games to play. The loss was the seventh in eight video games for the Ducks, who have tumbled from first to third in the Pacific Division standings and might now have to settle for a wild-card berth.

So they’ll hit the street Monday for their last two video games of the common season needing one level from video games in Minnesota and Nashville. The Ducks may also back into the playoffs if Nashville losses either of its last two video games.

“We haven’t clinched anything yet,” captain Radko Gudas said. “With two games to play, there’s still a lot of work to do, 120 minutes to give it our all and make that push.”

“We just can’t be satisfied with what we’re at right now,” coach Joel Quenneville agreed. “We didn’t make it easy on ourselves, that’s for sure.”

The Ducks have already assured themselves of their first successful document since 2017-18 but the playoffs have been the Holy Grail the crew has been chasing since then. And it appeared within attain until Marco Rossi scored on a energy play with less than 11 seconds left in the additional period, silencing a sellout crowd that had repeatedly peppered the Ducks with rhythmic chants of “We want playoffs!”

“I loved it,” Quenneville said of the mantra. “I wanted to complete that wish tonight.”

And it look as if that would occur given the way in which the Ducks began, with Cutter Gauthier opening the scoring with the first of two objectives 3:41 into a feisty and bodily first period that was interrupted by seven penalties and two fights.

But Vancouver received the next three scores, taking a 3-1 lead when Brock Boeser intercepted a sloppy Leo Carlsson move supposed for John Carlson in Vancouver’s defensive end, then outskated Carlson the other manner before lifting the puck over goaltender Lukas Dostal less than 5 minutes into the ultimate period.

The short-handed aim appeared to wake the slumbering Ducks, with Gauthier scoring on a energy play 37 seconds later to half the lead and develop into the first Duck with 40 objectives in a season since Corey Perry in 2013-14.

“It’s a huge milestone and something I’m very proud of,” Gauthier said. “But that’s not why I’m playing hockey. I’m playing to win games and eventually win a Stanley Cup.”

Carlsson then evened issues at 3-3 on a spectacular aim less than two minutes later, backhanding the puck over Canuck goalie Nikita Tolopilo while skating away from the crease for his 29^th aim of the season.

“It was kind of a dagger when they score a short-handed goal on us,” Gauthier said. “It’s supposed to be the opposite way. But I thought we responded really well, obviously tying it back up.”

The Ducks couldn’t keep it there, however, with Chris Kreider taking a slashing penalty with 2:07 left in additional time, giving Vancouver an additional skater. Dostal had saved the Ducks in the sport, making seven saves in the additional period including 5 enormous stops on the facility play, but he couldn’t stop Rossi on the ultimate shot, one which despatched the Ducks’ followers home disillusioned and despatched the crew back on the street still looking for its Holy Grail and an end to the second-longest playoff drought in the NHL.

“They’ve been hungry to get back in the playoffs over these last seven years,” said Gauthier, who was in junior high faculty in Michigan the last time the Ducks performed in the postseason. “They’re excited for it, we’re excited for it. We fell short tonight but we had a great opportunity to go on this road trip and get some get points.”

Actually just one level — the one they left on the ice Sunday — will likely be enough.