COLUMBUS, Ohio -- The Penguins knew they were going to lose another game sometime.

Well, some of them sort of suspected it, anyway.

But when their seven-game winning streak -- and their chances of running the table through the balance of the regular season -- ended with a 4-3 shootout loss to Columbus at Nationwide Arena last night, they were reminded of how much it stings to lose, even though the occasional defeat is inevitable.

"You don't want to think that [that a winning streak can't go on indefinitely]," winger Pascal Dupuis said.

"It hurts a little more, because you don't think you can lose anymore."

And, truth be told, it almost didn't happen last night. Although the Penguins spotted Columbus a 3-0 lead, they ran off three goals in a span of 3Â 1/2 minutes in the third period and had chances to score several more.

"In the third, we were standing still," Blue Jackets forward Kristian Huselius said.

Indeed, the Penguins' 19-4 edge in shots during the third only hinted at the way they dominated play then.

"We needed to get the momentum back on our side, and we did that in the third," center Sidney Crosby said.

The Penguins maintained it all the way through overtime but were denied a second point when Huselius was the only player on either team to score in the shootout.

Penguins goalie Marc-Andre Fleury stopped Jason Williams and Rick Nash of the Blue Jackets, while Columbus goalie Steve Mason denied Kris Letang, Crosby and Evgeni Malkin.

It was the third consecutive Penguins game that was settled by a shootout.

The perils of playing so many close games are obvious, but Crosby contends that they're pretty much unavoidable when teams are fighting for playoffs berths and seedings.

"That's the type of hockey you're going to see," he said.

"It's going to be tight. ... Teams are competing. There's desperation. You're going to see a lot of overtimes and things like that."

The loss dropped the Penguins' record to 36-26-7 and left them in sixth place in the Eastern Conference.

The game attracted a crowd of 19,167, a Blue Jackets record, although Columbus coach Ken Hitchcock was quick to point out that a significant percentage of the fans were Penguins partisans.

"The building wasn't loud enough because we had folks in the wrong-colored sweaters here," he said. "Too many of them,"

Those people didn't have much to cheer about during the first 45 minutes of play, however, because after a strong early-game surge, the Penguins strayed from the game that had made their winning streak possible.

"We know how we need to play," interim coach Dan Bylsma said.

"This is a reminder that, when we don't play that way, we're going to give other teams a chance to get into the game."

Huselius gave Columbus a 1-0 lead at 8:42 of the first period, while Williams scored at 16:59 of the second and Antoine Vermette made it 3-0 at 1:03 of the third.

The Penguins seemed doomed at that point, but Sergei Gonchar triggered their comeback with a power-play goal at 8:33.

Dupuis converted a Malkin set-up at 9:53 and Max Talbot scored from the inner edge of the left circle at 11:58 to pull the Penguins even.

"We managed to keep our composure and get our game back for the third," right winger Bill Guerin said.

"We don't want to start the game that way, but we realize there are going to be some games like that."

The victory could be a major one for the Blue Jackets, who are trying to get into the playoffs for the first time in franchise history.

They still are trying to establish an identity and apparently have trouble trying to recognize that of other clubs, which would explain why, during a pregame ceremony honoring Hitchcock, team owner John P. McConnell referred to the "Detroit Blue Devils."

Getting into the playoffs, though, will accelerate the process, and victories like the one the Blue Jackets earned last night will go a long way toward making that happen.

"The way this season started out, the fans were excited about the buzz of what we did in the offseason, but they were just sitting and waiting to find out how we were going to be," Columbus forward R. J. Umberger said.

"Were we going to be real, or not? This city's just been waiting for a moment like this."