Holmqvist, making his first appearance since being acquired at the February 26 trade deadline, lasted 20 minutes before being replaced by Marty Turco at the start of the second period. It was Holmqvist's first start since he was in goal on February 23 when Tampa Bay played Boston.

"Johan's been here a while and we are trying to get him integrated into our team," Tippett said. "We only play twice in the next 11 days, and didn't want him to sit that long. I feel bad for him. We didn't give him much of a chance."

Holmqvist ended up surrendering three goals on 12 shots and got beat five-hole on the second shot he faced in the game.

"Maybe I was a little too excited,'' Holmqvist said. "But no excuses. I'm disappointed. It was a big night for me, and I let the team down.''

Of course, you can't put all of it on Holmqvist. He was let down by those in front of him in the first period. That first goal started with a turnover. So did the third one, which resulted in a two-on-zero break where Holmqvist was left helpless as Mark Naslund scored to put the Canucks up 3-0 just under 12 minutes into the game.

"We kind of stunk it up," said Stars captain Brenden Morrow. "We were all disappointed that we didn't have a better showing for Holmer."

Said center Stu Barnes: "We didn't give Johan much help at all."

Tippett said the Stars are simply making too many mistakes right now, and on this night those mistakes were ending up in the back of the net.

"You can't make the kind of mistakes we are making," said Tippett. "We can't expect to make these kind of mistakes and I don't give a rat's you-know-what if you are a young guy or an old guy. We had more veterans making mistakes than young guys tonight. If we are expecting to be a good team we can't make turnovers that allow penalty shots, we can't have two-on-zeros at our net. That is just not the way the game works. If we are too arrogant to figure that out then shame on us."

Give the Stars credit for rallying. Loui Eriksson set up a Joel Lundqvist late in the first period, and that gave the Stars some life that carried over into the second period, during which the Stars got a power play goal from Mike Modano and a shorthanded tally from Brad Richards to tie the game.

But give the Canucks credit. They didn't wilt. They killed off a 4:00 Stars' power play with the game tied at 3-3 before taking the lead early in the third when a Markus Naslund centering pass bounced  off Brendan Morrison and into the net.

Another big penalty kill, which included some great work by Willie Mitchell, a few key saves by Roberto Luongo and the Canucks had themselves a big two points.

For the Stars it was their fifth loss in the last six games, leaving them in third place in the Pacific Division following Anaheim's 5-2 win over St. Louis Saturday night. The Stars, who trail the Ducks by one point, host Anaheim on Wednesday.

"We've got a lot of work to do," said Tippett.

"I knew what happened and he knows what happened," Kesler said. "Right now we'll just move on and focus on these next games coming up. I think the league does a pretty good job of giving those suspensions. He knows what he did is wrong, and I guess he is paying for it now."

Pronger will return in time for the Ducks final regular season game.