COLUMBUS, Ohio — For two months, they looked like world-beaters. Now, all of a sudden, the Columbus Blue Jackets don’t look much like a playoff club.

On Saturday, they couldn’t keep pace against the San Jose Sharks. On Sunday, they blew a 3-0 lead and lost 4-3 in a shootout to the Boston Bruins. On Tuesday, they forgot how to kill a penalty — they’ve had trouble remembering all season, actually — in a damaging loss to the Carolina Hurricanes.

The Blue Jackets allowed three power-play goals, including a “double-whammy” man-advantage goal late in the third period, losing 5-2 to the Hurricanes before 18,293 in Nationwide Arena.

“It’s a little tough right now, but I think we need to just stay positive,” said top-line winger Kirill Marchenko, who had a goal and an assist. “We have to look at the good moments and play our way. Don’t change anything.”

Blue Jackets coach Rick Bowness and the players were overwhelmingly positive after the game, saying they played well enough to win — especially at five-on-five — and that Tuesday’s game represented a step toward them regaining their mojo from earlier this month.

But the Jackets played well only in fits and starts. Give them credit for working their way back from a 2-0 deficit to tie it 2-2 early in the third. But when Carolina dialed it back up, it dominated for long stretches.

And, once again, the Blue Jackets don’t establish physical play until the other club drags them into it. They were credited with 23 hits, but it was clear how much they miss third-line winger Mathieu Olivier, who is out for two weeks with an upper-body injury.

The Blue Jackets are 1-4-1 in their last six games, including four straight losses (0-3-1). It almost defies logic that they’re still in a playoff spot in the Eastern Conference, but the out-of-town scoreboard was their best friend Tuesday.

All three clubs chasing them for the second wild-card spot — the Philadelphia Flyers, Ottawa Senators and Detroit Red Wings — lost in regulation, leaving the bottom half of the standings unchanged for yet another day. The Blue Jackets play the Hurricanes again Thursday, but in Raleigh, N.C.

“Tonight was a step in the right direction,” Blue Jackets defenseman Zach Werenski said. “I thought our structure was good. The penalty kill kind of killed us tonight, but I thought we created a lot of offense five-on-five, and our power play got us some momentum in the second to get us going.

“It’s not going to be perfect. How we were playing (a 20-3-4 run) … we’re going to get back to that. But in these long stretches, when you go however many teams playing that well, you’re going to have, unfortunately, some tough stretches.

“I actually think we’ve played better than maybe our record has shown the last week.”

Adam Fantilli also scored for the Blue Jackets, while Mason Marchment had two assists and goaltender Jet Greaves stopped 26 of 30.

It was Fantilli’s goal, an off-the-rush one-timer from low in the right circle, that tied the score at 2-2 at 2:07 of the third period. After the Blue Jackets left the ice to a smattering of boos after the second period, the Nationwide crowd was back and engaged.

The game swung at 12:42 of the third, when Carolina’s Nikolaj Ehlers carried the puck high in the zone, spun to his left for a different angle and fired the puck through a traffic jam and past Greaves.

Carolina’s Jordan Martinook was looming near Greaves when Ehlers’ shot sailed into the cage, which put the Blue Jackets video coaches, assistant coaches and Bowness into action, looking at the replay to see if there was interference.

The Blue Jackets wanted longer to look at it, so they spent their timeout.

“The ultimate decision is mine,” Bowness said. “But I have enough faith in our video coaches, and that’s why we took the timeout. We weren’t going to panic there, so we took the time and took a good look at it.

“That goalie interference is … you never know. There was contact twice (between Martinook and Greaves), once on (Greaves’) feet and also on the glove. We felt that was warranted, so we could challenge that.”

An NHL coach could certainly justify challenging a go-ahead goal with only 7:18 to play — if this season has taught NHL fans anything, it’s that goalie interference is judged by whim more than a rulebook — but Bowness had to consider something else.

The Blue Jackets had already allowed two power-play goals in the game, and they’re in a bad way with their penalty kill. They allowed two to Boston on Sunday and another to San Jose on Saturday.

Also, the Hurricanes came into the game with the No. 9-ranked power play in the league. But Bowness had his reasons to justify a gamble at that point in the game.

“We had killed the last two power plays,” Bowness said. “So, we knew that if (the replay challenge) didn’t go our way, we had just killed the last two. If we hadn’t, then it never would have been called.”

Carolina won the replay challenge. And then the Hurricanes scored on the ensuing power play, with 6:05 remaining, to make it 4-2. An empty net goal capped the scoring with 47 seconds remaining.

It marked the fourth time this season the Blue Jackets have allowed three or more power-play goals, but — strangely enough — the first time they lost in those games.

“The effort is there,” Bowness said. “Guys are putting it all out there, and that’s all we ask. We’ll live with it. We’ll live and die with being aggressive. We’ll live and die with that effort. It didn’t go our way today.”