Jackets keep coming back but can’t overcome errors

It’s not that the Blue Jackets got a head start on their bye week, as coach John Tortorella feared.

The team was physically engaged but sloppy against Nashville on Sunday, and goaltender Sergei Bobrovsky could only clean up so many messes.

The Predators won 4-3 before 17,894 in Nationwide Arena, taking advantage of a rough line change by the Blue Jackets to take the lead for good midway through the third period.

“You could see their intensity out there,” Blue Jackets left wing Brandon Saad said. “We matched it for the most part, but we had too many letdowns and too many mistakes.

“We kind of gave away a couple of free ones, and it cost us.”

Blue Jackets rookie defenseman Zach Werenski had a goal and two assists, his first three-point game in the NHL. Rookie right wing Oliver Bjorkstrand and Saad scored goals, while Alexander Wennberg and Seth Jones each had two assists.

Bobrovsky had 28 saves and kept the Blue Jackets in the game by stoning the Predators on three breakaways.

“We had some good minutes; we had some fair minutes,” Tortorella said. “We crawled back into it, but I think we beat ourselves on a couple of plays.

“We had situations where we made the wrong decisions. We were trying to push. We’re behind most of the game, trying to crawl back, and we got flat a couple of times.” It started early. With the Jackets down 1-0, Wennberg tried to make a pass through the legs of Nashville’s Mike Fisher on his way out of the zone, only to have the puck click off Fisher’s right skate and drift into danger.

Nashville’s Kevin Fiala gathered the puck in the high slot, avoided a

poke-check attempt by Bobrovsky and guided the puck into the net for a 2-0 lead.

The Jackets pulled to 2-1 on Saad’s redirection of a Jones wrister only 58 seconds later, but the lead was pushed back to two when Predators

center Calle Jarnkrok buried a loose puck at 15:40.

Bjorkstrand’s goal, his second in three games, made it 3-2 late in the second, and Werenski’s wrister off a brilliant Wennberg pass at 3:41 of the third pulled the