Jamie Benn scored the lone goal in the shootout and Kari Lehtonen stopped all three attempts as the Stars snapped the San Jose Sharks’ seven-game winning streak with a 5-4, come-from-behind victory on Sunday.

“They can keep thinking that. The only thing that matters is what we believe in this dressing room,” Benn said. “It’s not going to be pretty some nights. But the effort is going to be there and the heart and character will be there also. I think you saw part of that.”

Alex Chiasson started the second rally back from a two-goal deficit when he scored his second goal of his third career game early in the third period. Loui Eriksson tied it for the Stars, who have beaten division-leading Anaheim and the streaking Sharks the past two games.

Eric Nystrom also scored, and Lehtonen made 32 saves through overtime for Dallas, which moved within four points of Detroit for the final playoff spot.

“The situation we’re in, every game is important,” forward Ray Whitney said. “If we have any chance at all (to reach playoffs) it’s going to be a pretty impressive run at the end. If you look at these guys, they hit a hot streak at the right time. You can see how it catapulted them up in the standings. For us to have any chance, we’re going to have to go on a similar run.”

Tommy Wingels, Brent Burns, TJ Galiardi and Marc-Edouard Vlasic scored for the Sharks, who had won the first six games of their seven-game homestand. San Jose failed in its attempt to become the first NHL team to win every game on a homestand of at least seven games, according to STATS LLC.

“It’s very disappointing,” Wingels said. “We’re happy with the homestand as a whole but you’re only as good as your latest performance. There are things we need to clean up and move on.”

Benn beat Antti Niemi in the second round of the shootout when he skated out wide and then came back to the middle for a forehand shot. Lehtonen sealed the win when he stopped Burns on the final attempt.

This was the first of three meetings between the teams in a span of 17 days, and the clubs look far different than they did for the first meeting of the season in February in Dallas.

The Stars have traded key players Brenden Morrow, Jaromir Jagr, Derek Roy and Michael Ryder since winning 3-1 then. That loss was the ninth in 10 games for the Sharks, who have turned things around dramatically of late.

San Jose won in Anaheim on March 25 and then took the first six games of this homestand to vault from outside the playoff picture to the middle of the fight for home-ice advantage in the first round.

“I like to look at the positives, it was a good homestand,” captain Joe Thornton said. “Now we have to go win some games on the road. All in all, we needed to win some games at home and we did. It would have been nice to get the two tonight but we didn’t. But good homestand.”

The Stars twice erased two-goal deficits with Nystrom and Chiasson scoring 26 seconds apart in the second period to tie the game at 2. Chiasson and Erickson scored in the opening half of the third period to tie it at 4. The tying goal game when Erickson beat Brad Stuart to the rebound of a shot by Matt Fraser midway through the third.

“I just think we kept believing in here,” Chiasson said. “We were down 2-0, made it back 2-2, then were down 4-2 and made it back 4-4 and ended up winning in a shootout. This is just a passionate group of guys. You can see guys want to win here. I think we’re just going game by game, see where it takes us. We’re getting closer and closer.”

Galiardi, whose improved play has helped spark this recent run, had helped San Jose take the lead with a beautiful spin-o-rama goal in the second off a good play from newly acquired Raffi Torres.

Torres has long been reviled in San Jose for playoff hits that hurt Milan Michalek and Thornton over the years. He was even greeted by a mix of boos and cheers in his first game with the Sharks. But Torres quickly won over his new fans by dishing out some hard hits, drawing a penalty and earning two assists, including one on Galiardi’s goal.

Torres hit Nystrom to jar the puck loose in the offensive end and then stole it from Trevor Daley before feeding Galiardi in the circle. Galiardi then spun and fired a backhand with his back to the net, and the puck sailed just under the crossbar to beat Lehtonen. Galiardi even seemed surprised by the highlight-reel goal, holding his arms out in celebration.

Game notes

Stars F Lane MacDermid, who scored in his first two games since being acquired in the Jagr trade, sat out with an upper body injury. … D Jason Demers returned for the Sharks in place of Matt Tennyson after missing four games with a head injury.

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Given the way he’s playing, the backup is making a strong case for even more playing time.

Fasth stopped 31 shots for his first NHL shutout, and Francois Beauchemin scored in his 500th career game, lifting the surging Anaheim Ducks to a 3-0 win over the Colorado Avalanche on Wednesday night.

In just a short time — four starts, to be exact — Fasth has earned the trust of his teammates and his coach.

“He’s giving me confidence that I never knew I’d have in him when he came over,” said Anaheim coach Bruce Boudreau, whose team won its fourth straight game. “It’s a great, pleasant surprise that Viktor has come over and played so well.”

Fasth, 30, certainly has been quite a find for the Ducks since he signed as a free agent during the offseason. According to the Ducks, Fasth is the first goaltender in NHL history over the age of 30 to win his first four games.

Fasth stymied the struggling Avalanche with one sprawling save after another to help Anaheim start a six-game road swing on a good note.

“Vik’s really on the puck, making it easy on us,” Beauchemin said. “If it wasn’t for him, there was no way we would’ve won that game.”

The Avalanche players were in a sour mood after the game, as they were shut out for a third time this season. That especially didn’t sit too well with Matt Duchene.

“We’ve got to find a way to score, bottom line,” Duchene said. “We’ve been shut out three times in 10 games; it’s unacceptable. It’s almost 50 percent of the games we’re getting shut out. It’s a joke.”

No one is laughing about Fasth’s fast start. In his first four NHL appearances, he’s stopped 101 of 105 shots. But the ever-humble Fasth shrugged off his recent play, even his first shutout.

“It’s nothing you go and think about. You just try to do your best and help the team out as much as you can,” Fasth said. “I’m really glad I had (the shutout). It’s a little bonus. Most important thing is we got the win and started off this road trip really good.”

The competition between Fasth and starter Jonas Hiller is heating up. Not that Boudreau views it quite that way.

“Hilly will be playing very soon,” Boudreau said. “He will be doing the same thing, I hope.”

Fasth’s best save against Colorado was when Milan Hejduk skated in late in the final period and lined a shot that Fasth gobbled up with his chest.

That was the type of night it was for Fasth, who was the Swedish Elite League’s goaltender of the year the previous two seasons.

“Tonight, he stole us a victory,” Boudreau said.

Sheldon Souray and Saku Koivu each added a goal and an assist for the Ducks.

Kyle Palmieri nearly added a goal early in the third period on a 2-on-1 breakaway, but Semyon Varlamov slid over, stuck out of his glove and trapped the puck against the post. The referees took a quick look on replay before upholding the ruling of no goal.

Beauchemin all but wrapped up this game with a goal in the second period that gave the Ducks a commanding 3-0 lead. The play was set up by Koivu, who took a bone-jarring hit along the boards to send the puck into the offensive zone, where Daniel Winnik corralled the puck and sent it over to Beauchemin for his second goal of the season.

The Avalanche had David Jones back in the lineup after he missed the previous two games with a knee injury. But it didn’t ignite the offense as Colorado lost for a second straight time at home.

Boudreau had a chance to catch up with Varlamov, his former goalie, in a Pepsi Center hallway at the morning skate. The two were together while with Washington.

Asked the biggest difference between Varlamov then and now, Boudreau said, “He’s way more consistent. From when I watch, there are no soft goals.”

And then Varlamov proceeded to surrender two soft ones in the first period. He let a liner from Souray near the blue line slip between his pads.

Later, Varlamov failed to bat away a pass through the goal crease, allowing Koivu to tap it in with the Ducks on a 5-on-3 advantage. It was the first goal the Avs allowed in 21 power-play chances at Pepsi Center this season.

“If you look at the overall game, they didn’t outplay us,” Colorado coach Joe Sacco said. “At the end it got a little helter-skelter. We had some chance, we didn’t score. We’ve got to stick with it and keep grinding it out.”

Game notes

Avs captain Gabriel Landeskog (head and leg) missed a sixth straight game. … The injury-riddled Avalanche claimed F Aaron Palushaj off waivers from Montreal. He didn’t play Wednesday. … Ducks D Toni Lydman (flu) was a scratch. The team recalled D Jordan Hendry from Norfolk.

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