The Columbus Blue Jackets staved off elimination in the NHL’s Stanley Cup playoffs on Tuesday with a 5-4 victory over the defending champion Pittsburgh Penguins.
Down 0-3 and facing elimination in the best-of-seven Eastern Conference first-round series, the Blue Jackets came out hard on their home ice in Columbus, Ohio.
Jack Johnson, Josh Anderson, Markus Nutivaara, William Karlsson and Boone Jenner each had a goal for the Blue Jackets.
“Everybody contributed. That’s the way we’ve won all year,” Blue Jackets coach John Tortorella said.
Patric Hornqvist, Ron Hainsey, Tom Kuhnhackl and Jake Guentzel scored goals for the Penguins, who take a 3-1 series lead home to Pittsburgh for Thursday’s game five.
Sergei Bobrovsky made 27 saves for the Blue Jackets, who led 3-2 entering the third and scored just 27 seconds into the period.
The Penguins answered to pull within one again at 2:10 of the third on Kuhnhackl’s goal.
Jenner gave the Blue Jackets some breathing room again with a tip-in from in front of the goal on a shot from Brandon Saad that made it 5-3.
The Penguins scored a short-handed goal with the goalie pulled with 26.4 seconds left when Guentzel put a rebound past Bobrovsky, but they didn’t have another shot.
The Blue Jackets had seized a 3-0 lead before Hornqvist’s power-play goal at 6:43 of the second. Hainsey’s first goal of the series, at 16:24 of the second, pulled the Pens within one goal, but they couldn’t get on level terms going into the final frame.
“We weren’t committed like our team usually is,” Penguins coach Mike Sullivan said. “I know we’re better and we’ll be better. We certainly weren’t good enough tonight.
“We were in the game all night long,” he added. “We kept climbing back.”
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