The Chicago Blackhawks were the victims of some bad putbacks, but that doesn’t excuse them from a few blunders in Monday’s 4-1 loss to the Toronto Maple Leafs at Scotiabank Arena.

The Hawks have typically had their own bad luck this season, and Auston Matthews’ opening goal was Exhibit A.

During a line change in the first period amid a Leafs rush, the Hawks defenders turned their attention to William Nylander, who was charging forward on the right side, not noticing Matthews sneaking up behind Ryan Donato on the left side.

Nylander hit Matthews, who had no one between him and Arvid Söderblom, and sank the ball to five holes.

In the second half, the Hawks were on the verge of one of the strangest goals they had ever seen this season.

John Tavares made a spin-o-rama shot while being covered by defender Alex Vlasic.

Well, at least it counted as a shot, because how did a move that looked like a centering pass even get there?

The puck bounced off Vlasic’s stick, rolled and spun over Connor Murphy and sailed over Söderblom’s shoulder into the goal.

What do you call him after “Ava-Tavares: The Last Puckbender”?

It was a downer for the Hawks as they put relentless pressure on the Leafs in the second period and were not rewarded. The 10-7 shot advantage doesn’t do it justice.

Still, they carried that momentum into the third period.

Lukas Reichel scooped the Hawks’ first goal at 3:26 after Pat Maroon scooped up TJ Brodie’s rebound.

But Fraser Minten scored 21 seconds later, repeating the demons that plagued the Hawks during a 6-3 loss to the Columbus Blue Jackets on Sunday: You score, and an opponent’s goal quickly negates it.

Here another unpleasant jump occurred.

Conor Timmins’ shot bounced off the back wall, then off Söderblom and straight to Minten.

The Hawks were down 3-1 with 5 1/2 minutes to play on a must-have power play (Taylor Hall drew a hooking call).

But they failed to register a shot attempt after being bullied at the blue starting line and becoming choosy about taking advantage of the few chances they had.

The only real danger came from Simon Benoit’s short shot.

Matthew Knies finished the game with an empty-net goal, and a third straight loss dropped the Hawks to 8-15-2.

“We had some great chances,” Luke Richardson said. “I thought we shut them down pretty well. That was the game plan and unfortunately we just didn’t get on board with some of it.”

There are three takeaways here.

1. The Leafs didn’t win style points – just won.

Matthews, who paced the team to score the game’s first goal, was as high-profile as it could be.

Craig Berube’s version of the Leafs was more like trench warfare than we’re used to.

They huddled around the crease and only Reichel’s line could crack it. Toronto blocked 16 shots.

“They fought pretty hard in front of their net,” Richardson said. “But I liked the intensity and jam of our guys.

“Unfortunately, we have to find ways to score goals if we don’t score them on the power play.”

It was reminiscent of early November when the Hawks failed to score a single goal in four games out of five.

2. Have the Hawks used up all of their power play goals?

They scored three power play goals against the Blue Jackets, but went 0-4 against the Leafs.

In fact, the Leafs held the Hawks to just two shots on goal, and one of those man advantages was a five-on-three.

“We had issues with our listings,” Richardson said. “We were just looking for the perfect play instead of having a little more tempo and trying to either get it from the bottom up on the strong side, push it back to the D or get it to the other side .”

Connor Bedard set up Nick Foligno from close range, “we just didn’t score.”

3. And we’re back to the Bedard line changes.