Auston Matthews and the Toronto Maple Leafs are three games into the season, and the go-to explanation is already the posts.
"I don't want to make excuses, but somebody said we had six or seven posts or crossbars." That line was making the rounds Sunday morning.
Sure, pucks ring off iron. But as Luke Fox pointed out, Toronto held leads against Montreal and Ottawa, two division rivals, and left both nights without a point.
Both finished 2-3. And both were played on home ice, in front of a crowd that expected a lot more from this opening stretch.
The Leafs sit 1-2-0. Their only win was a 2-1 grind against the Islanders, on the second night of a back-to-back.
Six goals through three games. So where's the rest of it?
The captain has one goal and nothing else on the score sheet. Number 34 is supposed to be the guy who turns a one-goal lead into a two-goal cushion.
Sergei Bobrovsky wears both losses as the Leafs crease heats up
Here's the detail that should bother Jim Hiller more than any crossbar. Sergei Bobrovsky took the decision in both regulation losses and sits at an .887 save percentage.
Anthony Stolarz has a .963 across his two appearances. He also owns the lone win.
Posts don't score goals for the other team. And in both losses, the opposition found exactly three.
The blue line isn't bailing anybody out. Darren Raddysh, carrying an $8,500,000 cap hit, went minus-3 over the opening three games.
Gavin McKenna, all of 18 years old, is also a -3. He's still looking for his first point of the season while learning on the fly in a market that doesn't wait.
Not everybody is stuck in neutral. William Nylander has two goals and an assist, and Easton Cowan, 21, already owns a power-play goal and the club's only game-winner.
Morgan Rielly has three assists from the back end. But he's a -2, same as Nylander, which tells you how the even-strength shifts have gone.
Ottawa left town happy. Stephen Halliday scored the winner Saturday, and Thomas Chabot chipped in a goal and an assist from the blue line.
Blaming the posts after blowing two leads is like blaming the forecast for a leaky roof. The rain was real. The roof was still yours to fix.
Floating the iron excuse three games in is the wrong message from this room. This fan base has heard every version of bad luck, and it stopped landing years ago.
Nashville visits Tuesday night. After that, the Leafs head out on a road trip through Las Vegas, Colorado and Utah.
Does Hiller go back to Bobrovsky against the Predators, or does the net change hands before the plane leaves? That call will say more than any quote about crossbars.
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Should Jim Hiller start Anthony Stolarz over Sergei Bobrovsky against Nashville?
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