Pavelski’s OT winner staves off Stars’ elimination

DALLAS — Before every playoff game at American Airlines Center, there has been a narration to introduce pregame festivities. The one prior to Thursday’s Game 4 pointed to the obvious for the Stars.

“Adversity,” the narrator boomed, “is inevitable.”

There was another inevitability, it seemed: If the Stars were going to keep playing this season, eventually they would face another overtime — a place where they had gone four times before Thursday and hadn’t.

Inevitability showed itself again on Thursday, only this time the Stars prevailed.

Stars forward Joe Pavelski was the hero, scoring a power-play goal in overtime to give the Stars a 3-2 win and keep their season alive.

It was Dallas’ first win in overtime this postseason.

Dallas will now head back to Vegas for Game 5 on Saturday.

Game 4 ended up being a far cry from what Dallas displayed in Game 3. The 4-0 defeat included Jamie Benn’s game misconduct, which resulted in a two-game suspension, an injury to forward Evgenii Dadonov, and garbage being thrown on the ice prior to the end of the second period.

Stars coach Pete DeBoer said earlier in this series that if they were going to lose in the postseason, they would want it to be when they were playing their best. Game 3 wasn’t that. The Stars were down, but they weren’t out.

“They’ve got to beat us one more time,” Seguin said after the fame. “We have a tight group in here, a lot of character, and we’re going to give it everything we got.”

Game 4 was more like DeBoer’s hopes. He also said before Game 4 that he hoped his team would play with “controlled desperation.”