It wasn't pretty for the home club.

Dragging cement legs and drawing on nearly empty gas tanks, the Blue Jackets lost 5-2 before a standing room only crowd of 18,628.

"They were on top of us early," coach Ken Hitchcock said. "We weren't nearly as competitive as we would have liked. We lost a lot of races. Even when they gave us power plays, we weren't very sharp or competitive on the power plays."

The Jackets, who got power-play goals from Rick Nash and Kristian Huselius, fell behind 2-0 in the first period and couldn't recover.

The player who looked most tired was goaltender Steve Mason, who made his sixth straight start since he returned from a bout with mononucleosis. Mason allowed five goals on just 13 shots.

"They started early," Mason said. "I couldn't get a real good feel for the game. It's been a tough stretch. We've worked hard for the points that we've gotten. Obviously, we're disappointed with tonight, but I'm sure we'll bounce back."

The loss snapped the Blue Jackets' seven-game point streak (6-0-1), but they remained in sixth place in the Western Conference.

The Ducks took a 2-0 lead in the first period on goals from Chris Pronger and Brendan Morrison.

Morrison's goal, at 12:46 of the first period, appeared to catch Mason by surprise. He flipped the puck on goal off his backhand from an odd angle beside the net, the puck deflecting off the stick of Mason or Blue Jackets defenseman Mike Commodore before sneaking through Mason's pads.

"We were too slow to get into the game," Hitchcock said. "Mason would have liked to have a couple of them back, probably, but he's saved our bacon more than anyone."

The Blue Jackets allowed only five shots in the final two periods. The 13 shots allowed is a franchise record, although Hitchcock used the right word to describe that number: "deceiving."

Nash scored his 26th goal of the season to cut the lead to 2-1 at 12:35 of the second period, but the Ducks scored twice quickly to pull away.

Corey Perry went around Blue Jackets defenseman Christian Backman to make it 3-1 at 14:38, and Chris Kunitz bunted home a loose puck in the slot to make it 4-1 at 18:15.

"We made it a game when it was 2-1," Hitchcock said. "The third goal was the killer. We made a poor change. We got beat one-on-one."

The Blue Jackets had successive power plays early in the third period when Kunitz was given a high-sticking double-minor on Manny Malhotra.

Huselius made it 4-2 at 1:57 of the third period, but the Ducks got the goal back midway through the third when Bobby Ryan scored.

The Blue Jackets' fatigue shows in these numbers: They had 15 of their 28 shots and both of their goals on power plays.

Without the man-advantage, they were overwhelmed.

"The puck was like a hand grenade sometimes for us out there," Commodore said. "It's one of those nights. The big key is, you don't let one turn into two. We have a big trip coming up (beginning Tuesday in Calgary)."

aportzline@dispatch.com