Jackets Fall To Pens Despite Good Effort

The Columbus Blue Jackets came off a mostly excellent road trip, but despite their good efforts, they fell to The Pittsburgh Penguins in heartbreaking fashion to open their five game home stand.

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Here is how things went down.

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FIRST PERIOD

look, let's be realistic. Most times the Penguins came to Nationwide Arena they have tended to rough up the home team. But this is a team that has shown flashes of being solid and competitive against some tough teams in the last 10 games. The Jackets continued that look during the first period in making Pittsburgh feel rushed and uncomfortable, and that led to turnovers. One of those turnovers led to the night's first goal, and 100th of his NHL career, by Oliver Bjorkstrand who received a Jack Roslovic cross-ice pass and slapped it into the net of Casey Desmith.

The Penguins almost scored in the oddest way possible as the puck to a strange bounce while Merzlikins was out of the net and proceeded to skip right across the goal mouth to the opposite corner of the ice.

The visitors finally managed to tie the game with 48.7 seconds left in the period at the hands of Chad Ruhwedel on a long shot from the top of the left circle that beats Merzlikins just inside his left shoulder and into the net.

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SECOND PERIOD

The visitors started the period the same way the ended the first with some consistent pressure in the Jackets' defensive zone, and boy did they create some chances, but the defensive efforts by Columbus, and some excellent saves by Merzlikins kept things level.

The first power play for Columbus came finally came 7 minutes into the period. While they failed to score during the actual power play, Roslovic immediately remedied that with an unassisted goal just mere seconds after it ended to put the Jackets back on top.

Goaltenders were the highlight of the second period as they both made exquisite saves and were helped by some lucky bounces. The home team did manage one more save than the visitors though, and that made all the difference on the scoreboard.

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THIRD PERIOD

It was the Jackets' turn to start a period on the offensive, and they did just that with shot after shot that was saved or skipped just outside the goal of Desmith to keep the home team's lead from expanding.

Against the momentum of play, Pittsburgh earned a power play and scored the tying goal with just under eight minutes to play at the hands of Evgeni Malkin.

With 2:14 left, the Pens got their first lead of the evening on a heads up play by Sidney Crosby to pick up a rebound in the crease, while sandwiched between two Jackets, and back hand it home. And that was all they needed to put the game away.

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FINAL THOUGHTS

• The effort was there, but the bounces around the goal were not enough to secure the points.
• Elvis had a fantastic game between the pipes in his return from the injured list. This was a great thing to see. He seemed fresh and seeing the puck pretty well. All three goal scored on him were mostly unavoidable.
• The Penguins game plan seemed keen on keeping Patrik Laine from getting anything that resembles a shot on goal...and they mostly succeeded. Laine had a total of 3 non-troubling shots on Desmith and didn't factor much in the game.
• It's always frustrating to lose a game like this when you have done all the right things. Hopefully the Jackets can take that as motivation to figure out how to close games like this against teams like Pittsburgh, which has been a pain in their side for what seems like an eternity.
• Columbus now looks to right the ship as they take on the New Jersey Devils at Nationwide Arena on March 1st.

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