Early on in the first, Colorado's Cody McLeod and Pittsburgh's Arron Asham dropped the gloves and went at it. Towards the midway point of the period, Colorado had to kill off a 5-on-3 penalty situation, and did so successfully. And that was just the start of the action.
The Avalanche and Penguins combined for four goals in the final 5:09 of the period, and three of those belonged to the Avs. Jay McClement got things started with a goal off a redirection, which was followed by a Matt Duchene goal about two and a half minutes later. Pittsburgh's Jordan Staal answered with 1:27 left, and then Colorado's David Jones extended the lead back to two goals with less than 20 seconds to go.
Unofficially, the Avalanche outshot Pittsburgh 12-10.
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