Columbus Blue Jackets players celebrate after scoring a goal against the Pittsburgh Penguins during their NHL game in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, on Friday. (AFP)

By Jason Mackey/The Pittsburgh Tribune-Review (TNS)


Coach Mike Johnston figured Friday’s game would be a special-teams battle.
He was right. And that didn’t mean good things for his team.
Despite discovering success recently with their power play and sporting one of the NHL’s best penalty-killing units, the Penguins dropped the special-teams battle during a 2-1 loss to the Columbus Blue Jackets on Friday at Consol Energy Center.
The power play was the biggest culprit. It looked as wobbly as it has all season. Instead of generating momentum, the Penguins ceded it when up a man.
The Penguins finished 0 for 6 with five shots on goal in 10 minutes, 59 seconds of power-play time.
“We still had our chances to get back into it,” Sidney Crosby said. “But missing out on some of those power-play opportunities definitely hurt us in the end.”
Blue Jackets winger and Gibsonia native Brandon Saad got the eventual winner, a power-play marker at 12:49 of the second period and his first against his hometown team.
It mattered, too, because Patric Hornqvist tipped in a Kris Letang shot at 19:02 of the third period to cut the Blue Jackets’ lead in half.
A review of a potential tying goal seconds later kept the score that way as Hornqvist was ruled to have intentionally kicked the puck.
“That’s no goal,” Hornqvist said. “That’s a good call by the ref.”
Though bad results-wise early, the Blue Jackets (5-12-0) had the 10th-best power play in the NHL. The Penguins (10-6-0), despite entering with the third-best penalty kill, allowed a power-play goal for the third straight game and had arguably their worst performance of the season on the power play.
“With the group that we have, it should sort of flow a little bit better than it is right now,” Crosby said. “We have to make sure that we’re on the same page and that we’re executing.”
The biggest problem for Johnston was his team’s “shooting mentality.” This is not uncommon. The Penguins do not shoot as much as Johnston would like on the power play.
Only Friday wasn’t solely about being overpatient. Breakouts were disjointed. The Penguins were unable to consistently establish the zone.
The lone exception came at the end of the second period, when Evgeni Malkin hit the crossbar and Phil Kessel had a pair of chances on Sergei Bobrovsky.
“We knew we only had so much time,” Johnston said. “It looked like we had more of a shooting mentality. You have to have that shooting mentality.”
The Penguins fell to 1-3-1 in their past five regular-season games against Columbus.
Scott Hartnell’s goal featured a slick setup from Saad, who slid a pass through Marc-Andre Fleury’s legs that banked off his goalie stick.
Less than two minutes later, defenseman Ryan Murray -- who was inserted into the lineup when Brandon Dubinsky was a late scratch because of an upper-body injury -- found Saad in the slot, and Saad backhanded a shot over Fleury’s shoulder.
“They did a really good job on their PK,” Hornqvist said. “It was one of those nights where it didn’t go our way on the power play.”