Johansen, the Columbus Blue Jackets' 21-year-old beast of a 33-goal-scorer, was sitting at his stall when the doors opened. He was sitting there as the media badgered Brandon Dubinsky next door, and Mark Letestu across the room.

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He was there long enough for a few microphones and recorders to circle back, but the best answer he gave came in Part 1 of his availability after the Pittsburgh Penguins' 4-3 win in the opener of their Stanley Cup playoff series.

The Blue Jackets' average age is 26.1. Between them — all of them — they've played 251 playoff games. Pittsburgh is the league's fourth-oldest team (28.6) years and have a combined 1,154 games of playoff experience. For many of them, that includes a Cup in 2009. So — is there anything for the opposition to take out of its Game 1 loss?

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"No. I don't care about that. We're oh-and-one right now. We're …" — and then Johansen sighed like the busted, crusty veteran he certainly is not — "we did some good things tonight, but I think we still have got (to hit) a whole other level."

And he's right. Columbus allowed goals on two of Pittsburgh's three power plays within 45 seconds of one another. The first, Beau Bennett's redirection of a Matt Niskanen shot, came less than a minute after what could've been a backbreaking shorthanded goal by Columbus' Derek MacKenzie. That pushed Columbus' lead to 3-1 after 20:43 of play.

After Pittsburgh's outburst, the teams' control of 5-on-5 play see-sawed, as ExtraSkater's shot-attempt chart shows.



That shouldn't surprise anyone; Columbus, on the season, has been a better 5-on-5 puck possession team than Pittsburgh. Johansen seems to know it.

"They made us pay tonight," he said. "Moving forward, though, (we're) just trying to stay out of that box. I think we can play with them easily 5-on-5."

They can — and that's the biggest reason to think that this series, though one Pittsburgh should win, could be a real fight. Columbus coach Todd Richards downplayed the effect of the power-play goals, noting that the team didn't have its best game at even strength; he singled out turnovers around the blue lines, and poor play around the goal line that allowed Pittsburgh to start breakouts from its own end.

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Richards also allowed that the anxiety and anticipation of the game could've been "draining," and specifically would not use the term "slip away" to describe the game. There are reasons to think his team could've won; there are also things they'll need to do differently moving forward, like trying to keep Pittsburgh's league-best power play off the ice, and getting back to the sort of things that made them control 50.8 of unblocked shot attempts at even-strength, which was 11th in the regular season.

"It is (a learning process), but we're here to win. That's the big thing," Richards said. "The learning is through the process, but we're not here just to go to school." 	Center Brandon Dubinsky has taken his share of playoff classes, courtesy of a past life with the New York Rangers. He started his 300-level course in Annoying Sidney Crosby on Wednesday, with Richards going out of his way to match up the two centers and Dubinsky showing, on camera, why the two don't particularly care for each other. Crosby's only point came on a secondary power-play assist, so Dubinsky did well enough on Day 1. If anyone in that locker room knows the difference between March hockey and April hockey, it's him.

Now his teammates do, too.

"We know exactly what (the Penguins) have in there. We know what kind of team they are," Dubinsky said. "I thought our guys were ready. We came out and played a pretty good first period there. Look, it's a long series and we did a lot of good things tonight — we had a lot of guys get their feet wet and get the first one out of the way."