Patrick Marleau knows how to celebrate a milestone. Playing in his 1,000th career game, the youngest player to hit that mark, Marleau scored for the Sharks less than four minutes into the game to give San Jose a 1-0 lead.
The Coyotes picked up their play in the second half of the period, finishing off the period with nine shots. One of those shots came from Derek Morris, which deflected off of a Sharks player and past Antti Niemi to even up the score. The goal initially looked like it went off of Eric Belanger, but credit for the goal went to Morris, with Belanger and Keith Yandle getting the assists.
Phoenix's biggest asset down the stretch of this game may come from their physical play. They found their brawn in the latter half of the period, outhitting San Jose 13 to eight.
The Coyotes had several chances throughout the period, most of which went wide of the net and not registering as shots on the stat sheet. The biggest opportunity came from Ray Whitney, who shot a Martin Hanzal rebound wide right of the net and off the glass.
Phoenix will start the second period a man down, after Sami Lepisto was hit with an interference call with five seconds left in the opening frame.