Toronto built a three-goal lead in Vegas on October 8, carried it deep into the night, and walked out with a single point after a 4-3 shootout loss. The collapse that erased the lead is a separate argument, and plenty of it belongs to the players. The shootout belongs entirely to Jim Hiller, and he got it wrong.
When it came down to the skills competition, Toronto's shootout didn't reflect the faith Hiller had shown earlier in the week in his younger players. A Vegas rookie ended it, and Toronto flew home having handed back the point it had every chance to keep.
The maddening part is that Hiller already knew better, and said so. Earlier in the week he moved Cowan up to skate with Tavares and William Nylander, and he explained the promotion plainly: "He started really strong, and then I haven't played him as much." He added that Cowan "probably deserved a little bit more ice time." A coach who decides a young player has earned more trust, then doesn't carry that trust into the one moment built to reward a skilled individual skater, is arguing with himself and losing.
McKenna's situation is its own small indictment. You don't carry a talent like that and then drop him down the lineup, keeping him off the ice when the game opens up and the margins get thin. Skill only matters if you use it when the game is begging for it, and a shootout is exactly that moment, same as overtime or a power play that needs a difference-maker. Burying a player and hoping someone else conjures a goal is how you quietly lose games you'd already won.
Sergei Bobrovsky deserved far better than this. He gave Toronto a performance good enough to hold a lead his teammates spent the second half of the night trying to give away, then he was asked to survive a shootout his coach had stacked against him. That's a rough way to lose a point you earned.
Vegas is a genuinely good team, the kind you're supposed to lose to on the road, and a point is a point. A single evening in October won't define anyone's season. But coaching is the business of giving yourself the best odds in the moments you can control, and the shootout order is about as controllable as it gets. Hiller had live, dangerous young legs on his bench, and the shootout didn't make use of them. The standings will say Toronto grabbed a point in Vegas. The decision that gave the other one away was his, and it was the predictable one.
