ANAHEIM — Attempting a strong finish over the last 10 games of the season to close the year with a winning record, the Ducks fell shy of a third straight victory Sunday, doing Eastern Conference teams no favors following a 3-2 loss to the Atlantic Division leading Toronto Maple Leafs at the Honda Center.
The Ducks (32-33-8, 72 points) outplayed Toronto (45-25-4, 94 points) in the early going but were down 1-0 heading to the first intermission when Max Domi scored with 36 seconds remaining on the clock.
A neat bit of stick handling allowed Domi to skate around Ducks defenseman Radko Gudas in the slot, where the Canadian forward snapped a backhand above goalkeeper Lukas Dostal’s glove for his eighth goal.
Despite creating five more scoring chances in the first period, the Ducks were fortunate not to be down by two.
Within three minutes of the puck dropping, the Maple Leafs appeared to jump ahead on a Matthew Knies finish from Auston Matthews. But Ducks head coach Greg Cronin won a challenge because of a high stick along the boards from Mitch Marner that helped in the buildup.
Marner, though, made up for this indiscretion at 6:29 of the second period, capping a counterattack he created with a turnover at the visitor’s blue line by charging down the ice and beating Dostal unassisted for his 23rd goal and 91st point, the fifth most for a skater this season.
A minute and a half later, Leo Carlsson, fresh off the first four-point performance of his career with the Ducks, halved the deficit on his 20th goal, a wrist shot that zoomed through heavy traffic obstructing the view of Toronto goalkeeper Joseph Woll, who made 28 saves.
Fittingly, the two top teams in third-period comebacks (eight apiece) entered the last 20 minutes with the outcome hanging in the balance.
Starting on the penalty kill, the Ducks escaped without conceding despite a terrific early chance for the Maple Leafs, which instead committed a tripping penalty that handed the home team a man advantage.
At 2:16, the Ducks’ Sam Colangelo leveled the score on the power play, jamming a shot off the post before putting away his own rebound for his seventh goal of the year.
The Ducks pushed for an NHL-best ninth third-period come-from-behind victory, but Toronto, in a dog fight for the top seed in the Atlantic Division with Florida and Tampa Bay, would not give away the game like the New York Rangers did at the Honda Center on Friday.
At 11:35, the Maple Leafs scored the game winner that gave them a three-point edge on their nearest challenger, the Lightning, when David Kampf fired the puck to the front of the net and Steven Lorentz redirected it past Dostal at a tight angle for his seventh goal of the year. Dostal stopped 20 of the 23 shots he faced.