Stars coach Dave Tippett wasn't looking for excuses after Sunday's dismal 4-0 loss to the Sharks, but even he brought up the Stars recent schedule.

"This is our fourth game in five-and-a-half days," he said. "Is that part of it? You'd like to think you can play through it and you'd like to think these are hard lessons for our team that you have to play through it, but we didn't get it done."

The Stars were scheduled to have Monday and Tuesday off as they prepare for the rest of March, which will be a tough stretch as far as the schedule.

"Believe me, there is a part of me -  if you look at the short-term - that would like to be on the ice tomorrow," he said. "But if you look at the long-term, this is going to be a real hectic month for us. We have to prepare to play at a top level all the time. This is the only break we are going to get."

The Stars will play 13 games in 24 days when they start back up on Thursday in St. Louis. Tippett said he will stick to the plan of two days off. The last two games are a good indication that the team needs to rest up and refuel.

After a flat performance against Columbus on Friday, the Stars found enough energy for a strong start Sunday afternoon against San Jose. They pretty much controlled play in the first period, outshooting the Sharks 9-1. But San Jose's only shot - a Curtis Brown shot from the left faceoff circle off the rush early in  the period - beat Marty Turco to give San Jose the early lead.

"The first period tonight I thought we were pretty good. I thought we had a chance to dictate the outcome of the game, but we didn't get it done. The last two games we haven't been very good at all," Tippett said.

That first goal was big for the Sharks, who have been falling behind a lot lately. The Sharks got their legs in the second period and their next two goals getting people to the net and scoring off rebounds and scrambles, something the Sharks said they wanted to do against Turco.

"Marty's good with the long shots," Sharks rookie Joe Pavelski told the AP. "We need to have second and third tries to get to him. Both of my goals, we were crashing around the net. He's a little small. He struggles with traffic."

San Jose also got a strong game from netminder Evgeni Nabokov, who stopped 26 shots on the night. He got some help from the post and an Antti Miettinen deflection went just wide at one point, but Nabokov was at the top of his game.

The Stars, on the other hand, continue to struggle to score. They've gone five straight games where they have scored two goals or fewer. In two of those games they reached the two goal mark by scoring in overtime. They've failed to score more than two goals in seven of their last nine games.

"We've got to find ways to create opportunities and finish opportunities because you need to score to win," Tippett said.

"We certainly didn't play the way we wanted to. They're chasing us in the standings," Stars center Stu Barnes said. "We knew they were going to play hard and they did and they took advantage of us."

It was the Stars' first four-goal loss since January 11, when they fell 5-1 to the Anaheim Ducks at the American Airlines Center.

"We were embarrassed in a game we really wanted," goalie Marty Turco said of Sunday's 4-0 loss to San Jose. "We always thing about how we can be better, but to come out and play in an embarrassing way against those against those guys is very frustrating."

• The Stars have scored five goals in regulation over the last five games.
• The Stars had their points streak snapped at seven games.
• The Stars ended the season series against the Sharks 5-3-0. San Jose had a 3-4-1 record against the Stars.
• Jeff Halpern played in his 500th NHL game Sunday.
• Defenseman Mattias Norstrom made his Dallas debut, logging 19:12 of ice time and finishing even for the game.
• Ex-Star Bill Guerin played 13:58 for the Sharks Sunday afternoon. He had no points, one shot and was a plus-one in the game.
• Stars forward Krys Barch left the game with a lower body injury after a second period fight and did not return.

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