Line brawl breaks out between Flames, Stars after Tkachuk levels Klingberg

Calgary Flames agitator Matthew Tkachuk found himself in the middle of everything during the first period of Game 1 against the Dallas Stars.

A line brawl broke out between the two sides after Tkachuk hammered John Klingberg behind the Stars' net. Here's a look at the hit:

Tkachuk and Michael Raffl then proceeded to drop the gloves, as did Klingberg and Rasmus Andersson.

Klingberg had choice words for Andersson postgame.

"I feel like he's the one guy there in the scrum, he doesn't have a guy," he said. "I'm standing there with (Blake) Coleman and he's standing and shaking his gloves to me, like he wants to go against me. ... I'm dropping my gloves and I want to go but he's like just standing there. Two seconds and then all of a sudden he drops the gloves.

"He's acting a little tougher than he is, we're going to go after him."

All told, 42 penalty minutes were handed out during the extra-curricular activities. Andersson and Klingberg both received game misconducts for fighting after the original altercation had started.

The Flames held on for a 1-0 victory to take the series lead.