But in the final three minutes, against the defending Stanley Cup champion Pittsburgh Penguins in a packed and throbbing Nationwide Arena, the Blue Jackets channeled the franchise's early clubs that always found a way to blow late leads.

A 3-1 lead dissolved quickly, and the Penguins went on to win 4-3 in a shootout before a bipartisan, overflow crowd of 19,136.

"We took our foot off the gas, it's that simple," Blue Jackets coach Ken Hitchcock said. "We could have really had the game shut down there by staying on top of it, but we didn't. We started to play the clock way too early."

The Penguins won the shootout 1-0, with the only goal scored by Sidney Crosby.

The shot appeared to be stopped by Blue Jackets goaltender Steve Mason, but the puck slid under the heel of his stick and barely crossed the goal line.

"It hit off my stick and kept going," Mason said. "When I caught sight of it again, it was too late."

Rick Nash had two goals for the Blue Jackets -- his seventh and eighth of the season -- and Derek Dorsett had his first of the season. Mason showed improvement, stopping 29 of 32 shots.

Antoine Vermette, Nash and Kristian Huselius came up empty in the shootout for the Jackets.

"It was pretty easy," Penguins backup goaltender Brent Johnson said. "Their first two shooters missed the net, and then (Huselius) put it right in my glove."

Chris Kunitz, Ruslan Fedotenko and Alex Goligoski scored for the Penguins, and Johnson made 29 saves.

Fedotenko's goal -- making it 3-2 with 2:56 left in the game -- seemed to light a fire under the Penguins.

After that, Mason was under the duress of a powder-blue shooting gallery. With 2:17 remaining, Goligoski scored from the blue line on a slap shot that was partially blocked from Mason's sight by teammate R.J. Umberger, who knelt in front of Goligoski to block the shot.

The Blue Jackets, who never trailed until the final horn, were dismayed that the game reached a shootout.

"There are a lot of positives that we can take from this," Nash said. "But we're not closing out games. We've had the lead late in some games and it seems like we can't close it out."

In the previous five games, the Blue Jackets had allowed 26 goals. For the most part, they cleaned up the sloppy play that had earmarked the previous stretch.

"I'll probably feel better tomorrow," Hitchcock said. "Right now, I'm (peeved)."

Hitchcock said the Blue Jackets did not make any tactical changes with a two-goal lead heading into the third, even though they were outshot 12-6 by the Penguins.

"We're trying to get the players to stay aggressive," Hitchcock said. "The players are still unsure of themselves playing against good teams."

The game was very similar to last season's appearance by the Penguins in Nationwide. In that game, the Blue Jackets led 3-0 in the third period, only to blow the lead and win it in a shootout.

"Very similar, yeah," Mason said, "except this year we didn't come out on top."

aportzline@dispatch.com