No matter how many Grade-A chances a team generates or how many pucks it perfectly deflects, it’s the finish that wins games.

The Rangers didn’t have nearly enough of that Thursday night at the Garden against the NHL-leading Bruins. That resulted in a 3-1 loss in a game in which they were looking to size themselves up against the league’s best.

The measuring stick may have looked awfully daunting with a glaring zero on the jumbotron next to their logo for 55:37 of the 60-minute contest, but the Rangers didn’t exactly get swept off the ice, despite what the score indicated.

“I think it’s a fine line of winning and losing when you’re playing a team of that caliber,” Jimmy Vesey said after the loss, which dropped the Blueshirts to 25-14-7. “I thought our energy was pretty solid. We had our looks, but we make a couple mistakes and they capitalize and that kind of changes the complexion of the game when you start behind 1-0 and then 2-0.”

The energy and the looks weren’t challenging enough, evidently. Even though Boston goaltender Jeremy Swayman had to work for his 11th win of the season with 31 saves, the Rangers simply didn’t have the same imposing game as the Bruins, who didn’t look like a team playing on the back end of a back-to-back.

The Bruins, sitting on a 12-point cushion atop the NHL, can operate as an unstoppable force, with one goal and one goal only: To dismantle their opponents. They strip teams of everything they think makes them good and smother them in the process. The Rangers struggled to create space for themselves, and looked discombobulated at times, thanks to Boston’s forecheck and relentless pursuit of the puck.

That’s not to say that the Rangers didn’t have their looks. In fact, they outshot the Bruins 32-27 and generated ample opportunities in each period. The puck just didn’t want to go in, as a few Rangers have said previously this season and reiterated again Thursday night.

“I think when we play like that, obviously a little bit better than that, most of the games we’re going to win,” Mika Zibanejad said. “We just got to keep playing our game and keep progressing, keep getting a little bit better every day.”

Defenseman Ben Harpur may have ended Swayman’s shutout bid with his first goal as a Ranger off a wrister from the top of the left faceoff circle at 15:37 of the third period, but the Bruins are a team that needs to be put away early.

Gerard Gallant was particularly frustrated with the second line of Artemi Panarin, Vincent Trocheck and Vitali Kravtsov, who the Rangers’ head coach swapped with Jimmy Vesey midway through the second period.

Panarin finished with a team-high nine attempts and six scoring chances in 15:18 of ice time, according to Natural Stat Trick, but Gallant was more focused on the defensive side of the puck. The aforementioned trio was on the ice for one goal against, when Bruins forward Pavel Zacha was left completely uncontested for a clear tip of David Krejci’s shot from the point 1:19 into the game.

“I’ve talked about the second line all year long, about playing better, harder defensively, not giving up the odd-man rushes and it continues to happen, so I have to put somebody over there,” Gallant said. “And it’s not Kravy’s fault. He’s part of the line, but they got to be better than what they are. They create offense, they get good chances, but we’re not going to beat good teams if they continue the chance for them, chance for us, two for them, one for us.”