The Dallas Stars have been a streaky team for much of the 2013-14 season. They go through stretches where they manage the puck effectively and use their team speed and stretch-pass ability to create chances off the rush and forechecking opportunities. When the Stars play that way, they can beat any team in the NHL on a given night and can string together some impressive winning streaks.

Then there is the flip side. When the Stars turn pucks over and get beaten off the walls with regularity, they go through long winless droughts with multiple blowout losses along the way. The Stars have now been blown out in back-to-back games and have fallen out of a playoff spot in the Western Conference.

The challenge now: Clean up their play with and without the puck and hit the reset button on the process by which winning or losing streaks are built. The Stars call ill-afford a continued downward spiral where they are not even competitive in games.

The current 0-2-1 stretch started with a blown third-period lead and eventual shootout loss to hard-working but undermanned Calgary. That was followed by a 7-2 shellacking at the hands of the Winnipeg Jets and a 5-1 road humiliation last night at the hands of the Pittsburgh Penguins.

There were some stretches in last night's game at the Consol Energey Center in which the Stars got their feet moving and generated chances. They hit the post on at least two shots. Goalie Kari Lehtonen made a picturesque stretch pass to Antoine Roussel to create a break over the middle. Earlier in the game, Tyler Seguin scored a deflection goal to briefly knot the game.

However, these isolated highlights did not amount to nearly enough against a Penguins team that was eager to erase the bitter taste of losing both ends of a weekend home-and-home with archrival Philadelphia. It was bound to happen that Sidney Crosby would make some team pay for his frustrations of being held pointless in both Saturday's 4-0 loss and Sunday's 4-3 defeat.

With the way the Stars played last night between unforced turnovers and sloppy coverages, Dallas made for a tailor-made victim for Crosby and company. The return of Chris Kunitz from a two-game absence also helped Crosby, who racked up a pair of goals and an assist. Kunitz added a goal and a helper, while Lee Stempniak chipped in a goal and two assists.

Over their last seven periods of play, the Stars have been outscored by an alarming 14-3 margin. The team has not provided much help for either Tim Thomas or Lehtonen, but it should also be said that neither Thomas nor Lehtonen played more than an average game against Winnipeg and Pittsburgh respectively.

Making his return from a four-game absence due to a concussion, Lehtonen authored a number of good saves among the 27 he made on 32 shots. None of the Pittsburgh goals were outright "soft" ones. However, Lehtonen took himself out of position to make second saves and was leaving some preventable rebounds in the slots; signs that he was not as sharp as he needed to be, either.

The Stars will wrap up their three-game road trip on Thursday in Philadelphia. The Flyers have been playing outstanding hockey -- with a few hiccups -- on both ends of the Olympic break and have posted one of the NHL's best won-loss records since staggering out of the gates to a 1-7-0 start. Philadelphia played very well in sweeping Pittsburgh and then downing Chicago in overtime last night.

Come tomorrow night, the Seguin line is probably going to be matched up against Sean Couturier's line whenever Philly coach Craig Berube has the ability to do so. Couturier did yeoman work against both Crosby and Jonathan Toews and is regarded as one of the best young shutdown forwards in the game.

However, the Seguin line exploded in the second period of the Stars' Dec. 7 game against the Flyers, including a natural hat trick for the center. Unless his line can once again take over the game against Philly, the Stars may need other lines to step up.

Regardless of offensive output, Dallas will also need to be a lot better in its puck management and board work. Philly has been pouncing relentlessly on opponents of late in their puck pursuit, and the Stars cannot give any gift chances to red-hot Claude Giroux or anyone else in Philly's deep attack.

It will be interesting tomorrow to see if Lindy Ruff gives the start to Lehtonen (who has never beaten the Flyers in his career, although most of the losses came during his days with the Atlanta Thrashers) or Thomas (who has had considerable success against Philly). When the teams met in Dallas earlier this season, Ruff tabbed Dan Ellis as the starter and got a solid performance in victory.

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