Murray-Nutivaara pairing produces against Pens

Coaches often worry about the vulnerability of their third-pair defensemen when facing high-scoring, deep teams such as the Pittsburgh Penguins.

On Friday night, the Blue Jackets’ tandem of Ryan Murray and Markus Nutivaara proved an asset in the 2-1 overtime win against the Penguins at Nationwide Arena.

Murray scored his second goal of the season — showing great patience on a backhander in the second period — and Nutivaara played with composure on the puck in all three zones. It was one of the pair’s better nights in recent games and a second strong performance against the Penguins this season at home.

“Much better, much better,” coach John Tortorella said of the duo’s effort. “Nuti has been fighting the puck a little bit, and I thought he got better as the game went on. … I think (Murray), through some of his struggles, we’ve talked to him about being decisive. He’s been more impressive with his decision-making, and hopefully that will help his game.”

Murray opened the scoring at 1:33 of the second period as he found a loose puck in the slot and, instead of immediately shooting, cut across the face of the goal and calmly slid a backhander past goalie Matt Murray.

“It just popped out right on my tape,” Murray said. “I just tried to do something with it and get around the (traffic) in front and get it on net.”

The pairing didn’t draw much work against the Sidney Crosby or Evgeni Malkin lines, but it was dependable moving the puck out of its zone.

“We felt good,” Murray said. “We had a lot of offensivezone time. We were in their end a lot with the puck.”

Injury update

The Jackets lost center Lukas Sedlak to a second-period lowerbody injury. The rookie played just one shift in the second period.

‘Look him in the eye’

Tortorella loved seeing Oliver Bjorkstrand score his first goal of the season Wednesday. However, he also was proud of the rookie standing up to a Toronto player who tried to push him away from the net.

Tortorella doesn’t want the 177-pounder dropping the gloves, but he also doesn’t want Bjorkstand being shoved to the perimeter.

“All I want is Oliver to look him in the eye and push back — make sure you’re not getting shoved all over the place,” the coach said. “We are not going to turn him into a checker, we are not going to turn him into a grinder … But when you are just starting in the league, you gotta make sure you don’t get a reputation that they can shove you all around. Just push back, and he did.”

Slap shots

The game drew 19,188 fans — the second-largest regular-season crowd in Jackets’ history and fourth-largest including playoff games. … The Penguins played without defensemen Justin Schultz (concussion) and Olli Maatta (hand).