Lindholm scores lone goal as Flames blank Stars en route to Game 1 victory

Elias Lindholm scored the lone goal for the Calgary Flames on Tuesday in a 1-0 win to open their playoff series against the Dallas Stars in Calgary.

Game 2 in the best-of-seven series is Thursday at the Saddledome before heading to American Airlines Center for Saturday's Game 3 and Monday's Game 4.

Lindholm scored a power-play goal early in the first period. Jacob Markstrom stopped all 16 shots he faced in front of a Saddledome sellout for his second career playoff shutout.

Dallas starter Jake Oettinger turned away 25-of-26 shots for the loss in his NHL playoff debut.

Calgary (50-21-11) topped the Pacific Division, while the Stars (46-30-6) entered the playoffs via the Western Conference's first wild-card berth.

Elias Viktor Zebulon Lindholm.<br><br>That's it. That's the tweet. <a href="https://t.co/EQMroS7UF9">pic.twitter.com/EQMroS7UF9</a>

Calgary led 1-0 after a dominant opening period. The Flames held the Stars to three shots, and the first didn't happen until 11:05.

Both clubs had to absorb the loss of key defenceman at the end of the first period when Calgary's Rasmus Andersson and Dallas's John Klingberg were served game misconducts for fighting at the buzzer.

That tussle followed Matthew Tkachuk and Michael Raffl also throwing punches at the period's close. Tkachuk shoved Klingberg hard into the boards behind Calgary's net in the dying seconds.

Without Klingberg, their power-play quarterback, the Stars went 0-for-5 with a man advantage.

A Blake Coleman goal for Calgary midway through the second period was waived off because of his interference penalty.

Stars defenceman Jani Hakanpaa was penalized for an illegal check to Coleman's head in the first period, and the Flames made the visitors pay scoring off the