Fewer hits translate into closer games

PITTSBURGH — A funny thing happened on the way to tonight’s Game 5 between the Blue Jackets and Pittsburgh Penguins.

Remember the Blue Jackets’ plan to thump and bump the Penguins off their game, to grind them into submission as this best-of-seven series moved along?

Yeah, that hasn’t worked very well.

The Blue Jackets spent the first two games looking for big hits, running

out of position and creating open ice for the Penguins the other direction.

It has only been in Games 3 and 4, where the hitting has become a subtext to a more modern form of possession-based hockey, that the Blue Jackets have become much more competitive.

A 5-4 win Tuesday in Game 4 kept the series alive for tonight’s game at PPG Paints Arena.

“We still want to stay on the body as much as we can and play that physical game,” Blue Jackets right wing Josh Anderson said. “Maybe in Game 1 and 2 we were going out of our way to make that big hit and they were getting oddman rushes.

“In Game 3 and 4 we were smarter, picking and choosing our areas to lay the body on, and it helped us for sure.”

The Blue Jackets totaled 49 and 51 hits, respectively, in the first two games of the series, both at PPG Paints Arena. In Games 3 and 4, at Nationwide Arena, the Blue Jackets have been credited with 33 and 27 hits, respectively.

It must be noted that the definition of a hit varies from one rink to the next in the NHL. What is considered a hit in Pittsburgh may not register as such to the off-ice officials in Nationwide.

But the Blue Jackets seem to have settled in to play with the Penguins. They can’t match their plethora of stars — Sidney Crosby, Evgeni Malkin and Phil Kessel are a dangerous triumvirate — but they can do more than “Clubber Lang” them.

As the hits have subsided, the scoring chances have soared.

In addition to the hits dipping, the postwhistle scrums have

Penguins 3, Blue Jackets 1

Penguins 4, Blue Jackets 1

Penguins 5, Blue Jackets 4, OT

Blue Jackets 5, Penguins 4

at Pittsburgh, 7 tonight

at Columbus-x, Sunday

at Pittsburgh-x, Tuesday x-if necessary faded, from every other whistle to once or twice a period.

In Game 4, veteran Blue Jackets wing Scott Hartnell — no stranger to scrums — was a healthy scratch to get fourth-line center Lukas Sedlak into the lineup.

“Once that whistle goes, we don’t need anything else,” left wing Boone Jenner said. “We just want to play hard. We assume there is going to be some scrums, but we want to stay out of it and play our game.”

The wake-up call may have come at the end of Game 2. Left wing Matt Calvert let frustration override his better thinking when he took a last-minute run at Pittsburgh’s Tom Kuhnhackl and crosschecked him in the arm before putting a shoulder into him and knocking him down. Calvert was suspended for Game 3 but returned Tuesday.

“It was tough losing Calvy; he’s a big part of us,” Jenner said. “He didn’t want that to happen, obviously. We know they’re going to call stuff. We just want to stay out of it, go about our business and play our game.”