Despite putting 50 shots on the Pittsburgh net, the Blue Jackets couldn’t keep the puck out of their own, and found themselves going down hard after goals from Phil Kessel, Bryan Rust, and Sidney Crosby.
Much like Games 1 and 2 of the series, the Blue Jackets opened up strong, putting heavy pressure on Marc-Andre Fleury, but never put a puck past him, keeping the home crowd involved until the Penguins could get their skates under them.
The Jackets did a decent job of protecting Sergei Bobrovsky in the first half of the period, but things began to turn south when Sam Gagner was whistled for holding.