The Columbus Blue Jackets knew there was a tough night in store for Tuesday’s game against the Pittsburgh Penguins. Besides missing Adam Fantilli, Kent Johnson, and Patrik Laine, the Blue Jackets were also missing goaltender Elvis Merzlikins (upper-body injury) and forward Kirill Marchenko (healthy scratch). Jacket’s head coach Pascal Vincent said the reason for Marchenko’s scratch was that “his standards have been lowered a little bit” in the past two games. Instead of having the usual 12 forwards and 6 defensemen in the lineup, Vincent had 11 forwards and 7 defensemen. Andrew Peeke got the nod to step in as the extra defender. Jet Greaves was called up from the Cleveland Monsters to fill in as goaltender.
To pile it on even more, the Blue Jackets haven’t won three games in a row since March 16, 2022. After Monday’s win against the Las Vegas Golden Knights, they had two wins in a row for only the second time this season. Columbus also has not won in Pittsburgh since November 13, 2015. This was the 14th match-up for the two teams in Pittsburgh.
1st Period
In the first period, the play was dominated by the Pittsburgh Penguins. Not only did they get two goals, they had 9 more shots on goal, almost double the face-offs won, and twice the amount of hits as Columbus by the end of the period. The Blue Jackets started sluggish but blocked many of the shots the Penguins were taking. The fatigue of playing a game the previous night was showing as the Jackets had a hard time maintaining control of the puck and had four giveaways early on. Two of those giveaways lead to goals. The first was scored by Jesse Puljujarvi, his first goal as a Pittsburgh Penguin and his first goal of the season. Evgeni Malkin scored the second goal, his 18th of the season. The period ended 2-0 in the Penguin’s favor.
2nd Period
The script flipped for the start of the second period as it was the Blue Jacket’s turn to dominate the ice. The Jackets were able to catch up in shots and goals. They outshot Pittsburgh 18-6. Johnny Gaudreau made the first goal, his tenth of the year. Next, defenseman Andrew Peeke made his first goal of the season to tie the game at 2-2. The good fortune didn’t last the entire period, as Blue Jackets defenseman Jake Bean was assessed a hooking penalty. In the following powerplay, the Pittsburgh Penguins scored the last goal of the period making the game 3-2. Blue Jacket’s forward Sean Kuraly was given a high-sticking penalty at the very end of the period to give Penguins a full powerplay to start the third period.
3rd Period
The third period started even for both teams. The Blue Jackets killed off the powerplay and maintained the lead in shots on goal as well. The Pittsburgh Penguins got another powerplay opportunity around seven minutes into the period when Cole Sillinger was given a two-minute cross-checking penalty against Marcus Petterson after he disagreed with a hit Petterson had landed on him and retaliated. During the powerplay, the Blue Jackets scored a short-handed goal when forward Jack Roslovic made a fast breakaway toward the goal and landed the puck into the back of the net, scoring 3-3. Pittsburgh was quick to strike back, though, with a powerplay goal by Jeff Carter to get their lead back to 4-3. Just under a minute later, another turnover by the Blue Jackets gave the Penguins their 5th goal from Reilly Smith, his 11th for this season.
At 14:35 Pittsburgh received their first penalty of the game when Rickard Rakell was called for tripping against Johnny Gaudreau. The Jackets were unable to capitalize on the power play, and the score remained 5-3. The Blue Jackets maintained their lead in shots throughout the third period but weren’t able to get any more past the Penguin’s goaltender, Tristan Jarry. The game ended 5-3 with Pittsburgh getting victory over the Columbus Blue Jackets.
