DETROIT – The house of horrors that is Joe Louis Arena continued for Marty Turco and the Stars on Thursday.

Turco allowed two goals in the first 1:01 of the third period, and the Dallas Stars blew a 3-1 lead and lost, 5-3, to the league-leading Red Wings.

It was a frustrating outcome for several reasons. One, the Stars have been outscored, 12-3, in the third periods of their last six games and have gone 2-4-0 in that span. Two, Dallas is in a slump and falling farther behind San Jose for the lead in the Pacific Division. And three, Turco fell to 2-10-5 against the Red Wings and is winless in Detroit at 0-7-2.

"It's more about the loss than anything else," Turco said. "We had the lead, and we didn't do the things we needed to do to keep it."

"It was not a good goal," Stars coach Dave Tippett said.

But Turco wasn't alone in his struggles. Niklas Hagman and Mark Fistric combined on a coverage mistake that allowed Datsyuk to walk in alone on Turco for a goal at the 16:17 mark of the second period. And the entire team participated in a chaotic mess that ended in Stephane Robidas flipping the puck into his own net for what turned out to be the game-winner at the 1:01 mark of the third period.

"That's not the way we want to play," Robidas said. "You can't afford to do that in the playoffs."

Tippett said the score "flattered" the Stars, and that they really weren't playing that well when they took a 3-1 lead on goals by Trevor Daley, Jere Lehtinen and Brenden Morrow. He said the top scoring line of Morrow-Mike Modano-Brad Richards had zero scoring chances at even strength and that the checking line of Loui Eriksson-Joel Lundqvist-Lehtinen was the team's best.

"There are puck battles that need to be won, and their top players beat our top players," Tippett said.

When asked if he was sick of losing in Detroit, Tippett responded, "Very sick of it."

"When you watch [Henrik] Zetterberg and Datsyuk go out there and dominate the game, that's frustrating," he added. "These guys are setting the bar for the Western Conference, so we better raise our bar. We better raise our bar, or we're in trouble."

AP

Dallas Stars captain Brenden Morrow sees a shot prevented by Detroit goalie Chris Osgood.

The Stars (42-26-6) have used up the space they created with a 13-2-0 run last month and now are back in the thick of playoff positioning that could quickly move them to fifth place in the conference. What's more, they have nine games remaining in the regular season and appeared to fail a key test that had a playoff feel to it.

"We didn't pass, but I feel it's more the prep for the big test than the test itself," Turco said. "We have to step it up. That's defense, scoring and stopping pucks. That needs to be there at this time of year."

And what if the Stars can't raise the bar, Turco was asked.

"We're not going to win if it isn't there, and I personally plan on winning," he said. "We need to be firing on all cylinders and playing as perfect hockey as we can come playoff time, and tonight we were far off the mark."