SvoNotes: Blue Jackets stand toe-to-toe with Pens but fall short

Frankly, it was a game that deserved a better ending.
For most of Friday night at Nationwide Arena, the Blue Jackets and Penguins played an evenly matched, back-and-forth game that felt like it would be determined in the final seconds, or perhaps even go to overtime.
And then just about everything unraveled for Columbus.

"Five things, almost, happened in that third period, big events," Sean Kuraly said after the 5-2 loss to Pittsburgh that was much closer than the final score would indicate, "and every single one was a dagger for us."
Let us count the ways.

First, 5:35 into the third, Joonas Korpisalo made the one mistake he'd likely want back on this night. Moments after stoning Sidney Crosby, Korpisalo stared down a slap shot by Pittsburgh defenseman Mike Matheson and thought he had swallowed it up. Slowly but surely, though, the puck trickled out from his gear and rolled on edge toward the goal line, crossing it by an inch or two to give the Pens a 3-2 lead before CBJ forward Gustav Nyquist could pull it out of the cage.
Five minutes later, the Blue Jackets thought they had tied the score just as a Crosby penalty was ending, as Max Domi took a pass from Jake Bean in the left circle and let go a shot that got past Pittsburgh goalie Tristan Jarry. But Pittsburgh challenged that the play was offside on the zone entry about 25 seconds earlier, and the goal was overturned upon video review.
It kept going from there. With 8:10 to go and the Jackets pushing for the equalizer, Kuraly skated past the crease and made enough contact with Jarry -- his shoulder did catch the netminder on the side of the mask, though a hard shot it was not -- to be called for a penalty. Just 22 seconds later, Alexandre Texier batted the puck out of play as Pittsburgh tried to dump it in entering the zone, but that was a delay of game penalty that gave the Penguins a 5-on-3 advantage for a full 1:38 of action.
Columbus nearly killed it, too, but Crosby took a cross-crease pass from Evgeni Malkin and drove it home to make it a 4-2 game with 6:28 to play. From there, it was mostly academic but no less frustrating - captain Boone Jenner was called for interference on Brian Dumoulin on a retaliatory hit with just under five minutes to play, then Crosby completed a hat trick with an empty-net goal to ice things for the visitors.
A game that for so long had seemed ticketed for an exciting ending instead landed with a thud.
"We played a heck of a game," Blue Jackets head coach Brad Larsen said. "I have no issue with our effort, our compete. It's incredible to me we go offside (on the tying goal). That hurts. Within a minute something, we're in the box. We bump the goalie, it's a penalty. Gotta call it, whether he embellished it or not. They're all gonna do that, but it's a penalty, so we're short. We shoot it over the glass, 5-on-3, they score. We take another emotional penalty in my book with Boone. Emotion is a great thing, but you gotta be really careful in those moments.
"We were one shot away there, we were right in it, then we implode."
On balance, though, it was one of the best Blue Jackets efforts of the year. It was clear throughout the game just how much this one meant to Columbus -- those Pittsburgh games in Nationwide Arena are never lacking for emotion -- and the players responded in kind, flying all over the ice and turning in a performance that was even a step ahead of Thursday night's 2-1 win in Philadelphia.
Columbus stood toe-to-toe with one of the most experienced and talented teams in the NHL throughout, which made the ending sting even harder for the Jackets.
"You're disappointed right now, there's no question," Larsen said. "It's a hard one to swallow. The big events (in the third), they hurt us. Good teams capitalize, and that's what (Pittsburgh) did."
"The tough part about that one is it didn't feel like we did a lot poorly -- maybe a couple untimely penalties," a clearly dejected Kuraly said, adding, "Let me tell you, that (loss) didn't feel good."

Nyquist Finding Form

Here's a stat that pretty much defies explanation.
Nyquist has scored in six of the last 11 games, posting a 6-5-11 line in that time -- and the Blue Jackets have lost all six games he's scored in.
For a player who abhors losing, the fact that those goals have earned him little more than a few trips to the postgame media room, it has to be eating at Nyquist that his production has come in vain when it comes to wins and losses. He said as much after this game, as well, despite the fact his shorthanded goal in the first period not only knotted the score at 1, it seemed to inspire the Jackets to bring the fight to the game.
"It's tough after a game like this," he said. "But you know, yeah, (my game is) coming more and more here. I have better in me, too, and I have to keep building."
The recent hot streak gives him a 10-11-21 line in 38 games this season and comes after a slow start to the campaign production wise that included just two goals and an assist in his first 12 games. But it's also understandable that it took him some time to knock the rust off after Nyquist missed all of last season because of shoulder surgery.
"Everybody discounts he missed a year of hockey," Larsen said. "That's hard to come back from. Gus, you know he's gonna prepare and work. He had a camp and all that, but if you miss a year of hockey, it's really hard to do and then come back at the highest level. … He's been the guy we hoped he'd be."
The 32-year-old alternate captain did more than just score on this night, though his shorthanded goal - a follow up after he fanned on his first shot before putting the second try past goalie Casey DeSmith from a nearly impossible angle - did move him into first place all alone in the NHL with four shorthanded tallies on the year.
Nyquist was all over the ice, almost pulling the winning goal out of the net before it went in and also setting a screen on Domi's would-be game-tying tally in the third.
"He's been playing awesome for us," Jenner said.

Stats and Facts

• Jenner's goal that gave the team a short-lived 2-1 lead late in the first was his team-best 16th of the year, tying his total from 2018-19 and giving him his most in a season since he had 18 in 2016-17. Four of his goals have come in the last six games.
• Jakub Voracek got the primary assist on Jenner's goal and now has 21 on the year, tying him for third in the league with Florida's Jonathan Huberdeau and Calgary's Johnny Gaudreau.
• The strategic move of the game might have been Pittsburgh swapping out DeSmith for Jarry after a period. DeSmith stopped just 10 of 12 shots against while Jarry officially stopped 15 of 15.
• On the other side, Korpisalo made some beautiful saves in the second period -- denying breakaways from Jeff Carter and CBJ killer Jake Guentzel -- but ended up with 26 saves on 30 shots against.
• Crosby's hat trick -- he scored on a sublime redirection to tie the game late in the first, then had the late power-play marker and a bank-shot empty-netter -- was the 12th of his career and gives him 496 career goals. Of those, only 12 have come against the Blue Jackets.
• Shots on goal ended up 31-27 Pittsburgh, with the Jackets able to net just four in the third amid while taking four minor penalties. Columbus ended up with a 41-38 edge in shot attempts at 5-on-5 but Pittsburgh had a 2.22-1.94 edge in expected goals at that state per Natural Stat Trick.
• Also per Natural Stat Trick, the line of Domi, Jack Roslovic and Emil Bemstrom skated 8:04 at even strength and had an 8-1 edge in scoring chances while it was on the ice.
• Columbus fell to 7-4-1 in its last 12 vs. Pittsburgh in Nationwide Arena and 11-7-1 at home this year.