Perhaps some of that sloppiness that crept into the team's game in the shootout win over St. Louis decided to stick around for the New Year's Eve festivities. The Stars have had a lot of things go their way during their recent run, but that wasn't the case on this night.

"We've been on a pretty good run lately and had some bounces go our way. Most games you like to think you earn some bounces. We didn't really earn any bounces tonight," said Stars coach Dave Tippett. "For what ever reason there wasn't a lot of gas in the tank tonight and it looked like that throughout the whole group."

What ever the reason, there would be no celebration surrounding the team's play on this New Year's Eve.

"It was a fun atmosphere out there. The fans were into it. It was disappointing that we came out with that effort," said captain Brenden Morrow. "We really wanted to capitalize on this one with two tough opponents coming up. It's frustrating."

Said goalie Marty Turco, who was by far the Stars' best player in the game: "Tonight we just couldn't find that spark that we needed. We were lackluster. The intensity wasn't there."

If anything sucked the life out of the Stars it was the team's power play, which was 0-6 on the night and was actually out chanced by the Predators' penalty kill. It was out chanced by Nashville's Scott Nichol, who got two shorthanded breakaways, one of which turned into a penalty shot. If not for Turco, Nichol could have been the offensive star of the game.

"It was more about our power play than their penalty kill," said Tippett. "We weren't very good tonight and the power play was another facet of that not being very good."

But give the Predators some credit. Their penalty kill, which is top ten in the league and third in the league on the road, was aggressive and efficient Monday night.

"Their four guys outworked our five," Morrow said.

While the Stars were struggling the Predators were playing a pretty solid road game, got an ugly goal from J.P. Dumont, a solid performance in goal from ex-Star Dan Ellis and that all added up to a 1-0 win.

"From our end it was a sloppy game," said Tippett. "It was a good road game from their end. They worked hard, they didn't give us a lot of chances. They didn't get a ton of chances, but they got the one they needed."

Said Turco: "Everything was just one step off tonight. We'll learn from it and put this behind us."

And now the Stars move on to what will be a tough stretch of games. They play the Red Wings, 2-0 losers to St. Louis Monday, in Detroit on Wednesday. Thursday they head to Minnesota to take on the Wild, a team that will looking to make amends for an 8-3 loss to the Stars last week. On Saturday it's Detroit again at the AAC.

• Jussi Jokinen is expected to miss 2-3 weeks with a knee injury.
• Mattias Norstrom returned to the lineup after missing three games with a knee injury.
• Both Brenden Morrow and Mike Ribeiro had five-game points streaks snapped.
• The Stars were 5-5 on the penalty kill and have now have killed 21 straight opposition power plays.
• The Stars finished the month of December with a 10-4 record.
• Monday's shutout loss was the second time the Stars have been shutout this season. The other one was Nov 2.
• The Stars will get Tuesday off.