Rangers put up a fight but fall in OT to elite Lightning

Somehow, it seems unfair.

It seems unfair that after rallying from two goals down, outplaying the NHL-leading Lightning through the final 40 minutes of regulation and sending the match into overtime, that the Rangers should have lost yet another in three-on-three as they did 4-3 Wednesday night when Victor Hedman took advantage of a pick play in the middle of the ice to beat Alex Georgiev from in close at 3:25.

Fact is the Blueshirts are a slightly unbelievable 1-8 in contests decided in overtime, and if anyone wants to discount their overall 27-26-10 mark because of their 6-2 record in shootouts, imagine if they’d gotten a few more bounces playing three-on-three.

“I don’t know if we haven’t been good enough or just not lucky enough in some of those games,” Mika Zibanejad, who scored his 27th goal, told The Post. “I think back to some of those games, and we had great chances, hit the post, whatever, and then they’d come down and score. I wouldn’t say that we don’t have confidence, but we don’t really have the swagger starting overtime that says we’re going to go out and win it.”

After an opening 20 minutes in which they gave the powerhouse 49-11-4 Lightning — who have won 10 straight — too much time, space and respect, the Rangers buckled down and buckled on their hard hats after falling behind 3-1 early in the second period. They were feisty as usual and took the game to the runaway league leaders, willing and able to win battles and create skirmishes all over the ice.

And when Pavel Buchnevich engaged in a serious bout of fisticuffs with Yanni Gourde early in the second period after Brendan Lemieux had taken down Dan Girardi, the Rangers tied Ottawa for the NHL lead in fighting majors with 21. These guys have not backed down all year after a few too many years of turning the other cheek and playing whistle-to-whistle.

“Certainly fighting has not been one of our focuses. It’s more about standing up for each other,” Zibanejad said. “But even more than that, we have guys who compete their asses off. Our work ethic is completely different than it was last year. Even this game, with our first period, down 2-0, I think we would have collapsed against this kind of team and it would have been 6-1 in the third period. But we don’t do that this year. … Obviously we are not where we want to be, but I think we can build off this for next year, and that’s something we are going to strive for over these last 19 games.