Ducks fall to Canucks as playoff berth remains just out of reach

The shot by Vancouver Canucks right wing Brock Boeser goes past Ducks goaltender Lukas Dostal, left in the third period. (Kyusung Gong / Associated Press)

The Ducks held their annual fan appreciation day Sunday, handing out thousands of gifts, from a new car to team jerseys and gift cards. But the one prize the Ducks’ long-suffering fans really wanted, a playoff berth, remained just out of reach.

Needing a win to clinch a postseason berth for the first time since 2018, the Ducks lost a sloppy 4-3 overtime decision to the Vancouver Canucks, the NHL’s worst team, leaving them a point shy of the playoffs with two games to play.

The winning goal came from Marco Rossi on a power play with less than 11 seconds left in the extra period.

The loss was the seventh in eight games for the Ducks, who have tumbled from first to third in the Pacific Division standings. So they’ll hit the road Monday for their final two games of the regular season needing one point from games in Minnesota and Nashville, or a Nashville loss Monday to San José, to end the third-longest postseason drought in the NHL.

Cutter Gauthier opened the scoring for the Ducks at 3:41 of a feisty and physical first period that was interrupted by seven penalties and two fights, banging home the rebound of an Alex Killhorn shot just five seconds after the Canucks killed a two-minute cross-checking penalty on Teddy Blueger.

Vancouver matched that seven minutes later when Kirill Kudryavtsev uncorked a slap shot from the blue line that was knocked down in front of the crease but slipped behind Ducks goalie Lukas Dostal, allowing Curtis Douglas to reach in poke it home for this first goal of the season.

Read more: Ducks general manager Pat Verbeek agrees to multiyear contract extension

Jake DeBrusk put Vancouver in front on a power play four minutes later, redirecting in a shot from Rossi from the low slot.

Brock Boeser doubled the lead with a short-handed goal less than five minutes into the final period, intercepting a sloppy from Leo Carlsson pass intended for John Carlson in Vancouver’s defensive end, then outskating Carlson the other way before deking Dostal to the ice and lifting the puck over him.

That seemed to wake the slumbering Ducks, with Gauthier getting his second score of the game on a power play 37 seconds later, giving him a team-high 40 goals for the season. Carlsson then evened things at 3-3 less than two minutes later, backhanding the puck over Canuck goalie Nikita Tolopilo while skating away from the crease for his 29th goal of the season.

That brought the sellout crowd back into the game too, with many fans, who had been booing minutes earlier, rhythmically chanting, “We want playoffs!” But those please went ignored when Rossi scored with the Ducks' Chris Kreider in the penalty box for slashing.

Dostal had kept the Ducks in the game in the extra period, making five huge saves on the power play.

This story originally appeared in Los Angeles Times.