SAN JOSE, Calif. – Marty Turco is a direct reflection of his team right now.

The Dallas Stars goalie did almost everything right Thursday.

But stress the "almost."

Turco had a spectacular game, until he took a foolish four-minute high-sticking penalty and helped hand the San Jose Sharks a 3-2 overtime victory at the HP Pavilion.

The win pushes the Sharks’ point-scoring streak to 17 games at 15-0-2. San Jose (46-21-10, 102 points) can clinch the Pacific Division title with a win Friday against Anaheim. The Stars’ slump runs to 1-7-1 for the month of March. They now have 90 points and still are battling to maintain a playoff spot in the West.

Turco said he felt like his team had one of its best games of the month. Still, he said it came up short at all the wrong times.

"We made progress, but you don’t feel much better,’’ Turco said. "Mental mistakes are a lot easier to change than when your game’s not there. Tonight, I thought we did some good things."

Turco claimed responsibility for one of the biggest mistakes of the game. In the middle of overtime, he clipped Joe Pavelski in the head with his stick. Turco was trying to put a stiff arm into Pavelski to force the Sharks forward further around the net and create space for a Stars defenseman to carry the puck. But Pavelski leaned into a turn to go around the net, and Turco hit him square in the face.

"That thing in overtime was nothing short of dumb,’’ Turco said. "There’s no excuse. It was what it was, it doesn’t matter what you were trying to do. I always am trying to help my guys out, but in that case, he didn’t really need any help. It was just a reaction – and something that’s easily stopped.’’

Turco said that was the encouraging thing about the mental mistakes – that they can be controlled. But Stars coach Dave Tippett wasn’t as optimistic. B.J. Crombeen took a foolish instigator penalty in the second period when he was sticking up for teammate Toby Petersen after Petersen received a clean hit from Sharks defenseman Kyle McLaren. The Sharks scored on the ensuing power play. Then, Trevor Daley compounded Turco’s penalty in overtime by taking a hooking call that gave the Sharks a two-man advantage.

“These rules changes three years ago - how we can keep sticking our stick in a guy’s stomach just baffles me,” Tippett said. “And the Marty one, I don’t know what he’s thinking there, whether he’s protecting himself, I’m not sure what he’s thinking with that one. Those are just mental mistakes that have to come out of our game.”

AP

San Jose Sharks center Joe Pavelski (left) celebrates with Devin Setoguchi after scoring a goal on the Dallas Stars' Marty Turco.

And while Turco did a great job of clearing up a few shots on his penalty, he was unable to keep the puck out of the net once the Sharks went to the 5-on-3 power play. Sharks center Joe Thornton tried to thread a pass to Patrick Marleau, but the puck deflected in off of the skate of Stars defenseman Philippe Boucher for the winner.

Of course, the game would have never advanced to that point had Mike Modano scored on a short-handed breakaway seconds earlier. Modano blew past Sharks defenseman Brian Campbell and tried to make a stop and tuck move but lost control of the puck. He gathered it behind the net and tried to stuff in a backhand, but Sharks goalie Evgeni Nabokov came up with two big saves and prevented the puck from going completely over the goal line.

“I had him on the original one, but it just rolled off my stick,” Modano said. “The second one just missed.’’

Tippett said the team is simply finding ways to lose games.

“It’s a game of inches,” Tippett said. “He thinks it’s in … and it’s not. That’s kind of where we are right now."

The Stars are hoping to get out of the slump by playing a heavy schedule. They continue the California road trip with games at Los Angeles on Saturday and at Anaheim on Sunday.

"We battled hard and did some positive things, but we had some mental mistakes and those mistakes keep biting us," Tippett said. "We’ll take the point and keep pushing forward, though."