The Stars are jinxed.

Or they may think they are.

Either way, the team is in a dark place right now.

Dallas had one of its most aggressive performances of the season Friday night at American Airlines Center and still lost, 5-0, to the Phoenix Coyotes. The harder the team tried to score, the more mistakes it made. The more it got behind, the harder it tried to score.

It was a vicious cycle that capped one of the worst homestands in the last 10 seasons.

Dallas lost three straight at AAC this week and fell to 5-6-2 overall. The Stars wake up this morning closer to the bottom of the Western Conference than the top. The last time the team had this rough a start was in 2001-02, when coach Ken Hitchcock was eventually fired and general manager Bob Gainey stepped down.

And all of that has to be gnawing at the team.

"This is rock bottom for us," captain Brenden Morrow said. "This is some of the worst hockey I have seen since I have been here."

Ironically, Friday's offering wasn't all bad. The Stars shuffled their lineup and seemed to get great energy from call-up Chris Conner and linemates Mike Modano and Loui Eriksson. The Mike Ribeiro line was all over Phoenix goalie Mikael Tellqvist, and the checking lines even pressured the Coyotes with offense.

Dallas put 35 shots on goal, had 18 others blocked and missed the net 10 times. That's 63 shot opportunities compared to Phoenix's 44.

Yet Phoenix made its chances count. The Stars made simple mistakes with the puck on two Coyotes goals in the first period and never recovered. Goalie Mike Smith was pulled after allowing two goals on nine shots, and Marty Turco was no better in relief. The duo has allowed 10 goals in the last two games.

So is it bad goaltending, bad defensive coverage, uneven lines or lack of focus?

"It's everything," defenseman Philippe Boucher said. "It's a team thing. Everything needs to improve."

But can the team fix everything or does it need to simply tear its game down to its base and start playing to win 1-0 or 2-1 games?

"We have to get better in our own end," coach Dave Tippett said. "But we also have to get better about not letting the puck come into our end."

Morrow, who spoke to reporters after a lengthy closed-door team meeting – the second one of the week – said he believes the team's identity can be found in a hard defending style.

"Giving up five goals, that's not the Dallas Stars," Morrow said. "That isn't the identity we have built. Bottom line is we have to defend and check."

That may be the only way to give the team confidence, because right now the Stars are finding different ways to lose games. One particular series Friday was a perfect reflection of things that have gone wrong. With the Stars on the power play and trying to overcome a 2-0 deficit, they hammered Tellqvist with everything they had. Shots were flying at the Phoenix goalie and rebounds were scattered across the ice. The Stars had almost two full minutes in the offensive zone and couldn't score.

And when Phoenix winger Shane Doan exited the penalty box, he took a quick pass from Nick Boynton and forced a goal past Turco for a 3-0 lead.

Jinxed? Cursed? Simply in a slump with no identity?

The Stars may be all of that right now.

But as they head off on a four-game road trip, they have to find some solutions or face much bigger problems down the road.

"A road trip might be good for us so we can pull together as a group," Morrow said. "The panic button hasn't been hit, but the time is now to nip this and move forward."