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It did not take long for emotions to come to the forefront of the Calgary Flames-Dallas Stars series.

After the opening 20 minutes, Matthew Tkachuk levied a clean hit on Stars blueliner John Klingberg. Michael Raffl then confronted Tkachuk, and the two fought. Klingberg then decided to drop the gloves with Flames blueliner Rasmus Andersson. Klingberg and Andersson were ejected from the game shortly after, and each team had to play with five defencemen.

Calgary ultimately squeezed out a 1-0 victory, and after the game Klingberg foreshadowed what might develop in the series.

“I’m not saying I’m a tough guy, but he’s acting tougher than he is,” he said.

“I feel like he’s the one guy there in the scrum. He doesn’t have a guy. I’m standing there with [Blake] Coleman and he’s standing there shaking his gloves to me like, ‘You want to go against me?’… I’m skating over to him, I’m dropping my gloves and he’s just standing there for like two seconds and all of a sudden he drops his gloves. He’s acting tougher than he is. We’re going to go after him.”

The opening 10 minutes had the feel of a Calgary blowout.

The Flames controlled the play from puck drop, fueled by a sellout crowd of over 19,000. Elias Lindholm scored five minutes in on the power play, sending fans into a frenzy. It took the Stars over 11 minutes to fire their first shot on Jacob Markstrom.

The rest of the game, however, Dallas limited the Flames’ ability to enter their zone and have extended time with the puck. Calgary had zero scoring chances off the rush and 26 total shots on goal on the evening. 

During an uncharacteristically quiet evening, Lindholm, Tkachuk and Johnny Gaudreau combined for one five-on-five shot. Much of Dallas’ defensive efforts can be traced to goaltender Jake Oettinger, making his third career playoff start and looking very comfortable.

“I don't know if I've ever been as fired up as I was in the first period there,” Oettinger said.

“It was just such a fun atmosphere to play in. It's only going to get better from here on out."

On the Flames’ end, Markstrom earned praise from teammates. Despite not being tested often, he came up with saves when needed.

“He was solid,” Erik Gudbranson said. “There was moments in the game when he needed to be sticky and he was sticky and got a whistle for us. We trust him. He’s a great goaltender.”

While Dallas lost and ultimately could not score, they did show that they will be a tougher out than many predicted.

“They thought they were going to run us out of the rink, and our guys were going to stand up to everything they threw at us,” Stars head coach Rick Bowness said.

“We’re here to win. We played 82 games to make it to the playoffs and we are not here to be somebody else’s stepping stone to the next round.”

As for the added emotion, Coleman had a prediction for who might stir the pot even more as the series continues.

"[Matthew Tkachuk] is the heartbeat,” he said.

“He's in every scrum, he's setting up plays, he's scoring goals. He's a tough guy to play against…this is obviously the big stage. He had a great season. I expect we haven't seen the best of Matthew Tkachuk yet."