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.” Forward Jason Robertson epitomized it the most.
Vegas had goals from two familiar foes in regulation. William Karlsson scored first to give Vegas a 1-0 lead. Jonathan Marchessault scored in the second period. It was the third goal of the series for both.
In between those goals were goals from Robertson. The first came when he smacked a puck out of the air past Adin Hill, who recorded his first postseason shutout in Game 3. After Marchessault gave Vegas the lead again, Robertson dragged Dallas off the precipice of elimination, once again. He hit the post on an attempt, but seconds later finished the job.
While Robertson did the job on offense, Jake Oettinger did it in the net. He recorded 37 saves on 39 shots.
Once the game went to overtime, Dallas was faced with trying to stop a Vegas team that had scored game-winning overtime goals less than two minutes into both Game 1 and Game 2.
The Stars combatted the early push from Vegas. Then the spark occurred. Vegas defenseman Brayden McNabb was called for high stick on Ty Dellandrea, giving Dallas a power play opportunity. Pavelski and the Stars took advantage, giving them their first win of the conference finals.
Dallas knew, if it had any chance of coming back, it would have to take that first step.
Maybe defying the overwhelming inevitability of overtime can be the spark the Stars needed to stretch this series even further.
Back to Vegas to find out.
