Blue Jackets stay hot, stop Penguins
Gustav Nyquist had a hat trick and Nick Foligno scored twice Friday to pace the Columbus Blue Jackets to a 5-2 win over the visiting Pittsburgh Penguins.
The Blue Jackets, who are 5-2-1 in their past eight games, scored twice on the power play and built a 4-1 lead through two periods. They were 1-6-3 in their previous 10 games against Pittsburgh.
Joonas Korpisalo stopped 29 of 31 Penguins shots.
Jake Guentzel and Kris Letang scored and Evgeni Malkin had two assists for Pittsburgh, which had its three-game winning streak and six-game point streak snapped.
Tristan Jarry made 25 saves.
Columbus dominated the first and, for its 10th straight game, scored first. Oliver Bjorkstrand took a turning shot from the slot that went in off Nyquist for a 1-0 lead at 5:21 of the first. Bjorkstrand has a six-game point streak.
Guentzel tied it at 17:57, his team-leading 15th goal. Off a two-on-one, Guentzel took a pass from Evgeni Malkin, settled the puck and then popped it between Korpisalo's pads to extend his point streak to seven games.
The Blue Jackets outshot the Penguins 13-3 in the first.
Foligno gave Columbus a 2-1 lead with an unassisted goal 26 seconds into the second. After Malkin turned the puck over, Foligno beat Jarry on his stick side.
At 2:52 of the second, Nyquist picked up his second of the game. His backhander from the slot came on a power play to make it 3-1 and extend the Blue Jackets' lead in shots to 20-4.
Columbus got another power-play goal, from Foligno, at 15:09 of the second to push its lead to 4-1. He got to a puck that died when defenseman Jack Johnson blocked a shot, and Foligno scored from the slot.
Letang cut it to 4-2 at 5:20 of the third on a far-side shot off the far post from the right dot.
Nyquist added an empty-netter with 58.2 seconds left for his second career hat trick.
--Field Level Media
