NEW YORK _ On this Festivus night, the Rangers failed the feats of strength.
They sure tried down the stretch, wrestling with the Maple Leafs and at one point having a tying goal waved off, but two unsatisfactory periods couldn't be overcome in this 3-2 home loss Saturday night.
As the lines were juggled, the bottom two defensive pairs switched and Mika Zibanejad got benched after one third-period shift, the Rangers started to show signs of life down by two goals and seemingly had an equalizer at 12:09 of the period.
It was Michael Grabner beating Frederik Andersen causing the Madison Square Garden crowd to erupt after J.T. Miller had brought the Rangers within one just 44 seconds earlier. But the Maple Leafs challenged for offside and video review showed that Kevin Hayes was indeed offside on the opposite end of the play, nullifying the goal.
Miller's goal came off a feed by Pavel Buchnevich from behind the net through Roman Polak's legs. Miller began the game on the fourth line and switched with Buchnevich for the second period before both played together while Zibanejad rode the pine.
The Rangers (19-13-4) made a mad dash at the end of the game even despite taking a too-many-men on the ice infraction with 1:24 remaining, Henrik Lundqvist summoned to the bench just to keep things at five-on-five.
A penalty-laden first period saw the Maple Leafs take a 1-0 lead at 17:14 when the Rangers got caught for a never-ending shift in their own end following a failed power play. Three of the five players on the Rangers' top power-play unit couldn't get off the ice and logged shifts of at least three minutes: Kevin Shattenkirk (3:43,) Mika Zibanejad (3:01) and Mats Zuccarello (3:01,) the last roughly minute-and-a-half spent chasing the puck in their own end before William Nylander's goal.
Ryan McDonagh's late delay-of-game penalty for flipping the puck over the glass resulted in a Toronto power play which carried over into the second period, and a one-time blast from Ron Hainsey with six seconds left in the man-advantage doubled the Leafs' lead.
With the game on the brink of getting out of hand, the Rangers found a much-needed goal less than two minutes later thanks to a Frederik Andersen misplay at the side of his own net. The goalie appeared indecisive with the puck, allowing Jimmy Vesey to pounce on it and wrap it around into an open net to halve the Blueshirts' deficit.
Then came the goal from the American wunderkind Auston Matthews, who returned to Toronto's lineup after missing the previous six games with a concussion. After McDonagh and Nick Holden lost a puck battle at the wall, Zach Hyman's pass hit off an open Matthews' stick blade in front. Lundqvist tried to poke the puck away but didn't get enough on it, allowing Matthews to pot a backhand and give the Leafs a 3-1 advantage, Lundqvist slamming his stick on the crossbar in frustration.
Boo Nieves came back into the lineup Saturday after being a healthy scratch the previous two games since Zibanejad's return from a concussion. He returned after Jesper Fast on Friday was ruled out for two-to-three weeks with a quad strain.
But Nieves and fellow fourth-liner Paul Carey barely played in this one. Nieves logged just 4:38 and Carey played 5:40.
The Blueshirts head into the NHL's three-day Christmas moratorium having lost two in a row after Thursday's poor effort in Newark, which ended with a shootout.
