With two minutes gone, play was stopped to repair Jose Theodore’s skate, which seemed to have blown a blade.
With about six minutes gone in the period, Tomas Fleischmann managed to get a good shot on goal in his return to the Pepsi Center. This is the first time he’s been back since scoring 21 points in 22 games to finish last season for the Avalanche.
Both teams looked like they were skating through mud for the first eight minutes, each only logging two shots on goal.
With seven minutes left in the period, Shane O’Brien was called for a roughing penalty on Michal Repik for the Panthers first man advantage of the evening. After clearing the puck out of the zone twice, the Panthers managed to get a dirty goal when Marcel Goc corraled the puck in a scrum in front of Jean Sebastian Giguere for his fifth goal of the season. It was only the second time in the last eight games that the Panthers managed to score first. The Cats are 14-1-4 when tallying the first goal of the game. Assists were earned on the play by Dmitry Kulikov and Tomas Kopecky.
The Avalanche kept the puck in the Panthers for just over a full minute with two minutes to go in the period. The puck cycled for so long I thought it was a power play, but Kulikov finally cleared it out.
As the period ended, Shawn Matthias was called for a high stick, putting Colorado a man up for a full two minutes when the teams take the ice for the second period.
Hits: Tied, 3-3
Blocked Shots: Panthers, 9-8
Faceoffs: Panthers, 8-6
Shots On Goal: Tied, 9-9
Score: Panthers 1, Avalanche 0