Herein we read the tea leaves on a game that hearkened back to a version of the Stars that one might have imagined had long departed the building.

The Dallas Stars hit the All-Star break with one of their most disappointing performances in recent weeks, a 4-1 manhandling by the Toronto Maple Leafs on Thursday night.

Video: Stars can't solve Leafs at home

1. Defeat serves as stark reminder

Let's start with the premise that the reason the Stars had gone 8-2-1 in their last 11 games and outscored opponents 44-20 was that they had worked their tails off to make life miserable for their opponents. Further, let's accept that the bedrock of their success is that hard work and that it is the currency of this team, and on which it is dependent if they're going to make the playoffs.

On Thursday, the team looked -- for the most part -- darned near penniless because that work ethic was only sparingly on display.

"I can't remember the last time we've given up odd-man rushes like we gave. And the odd man rushes we gave up were us with the puck and really light plays with the puck," Dallas head coach Ken Hitchcock said. "And on three of the goals where we actually had full possession and turned it over, that was disappointing."

Unlike heading into the holiday break in December and the bye week earlier this month when they beat Nashville and Edmonton, respectively, the Stars looked very much like they were in All-Star break mode before the game began.

Sloppy, careless, soft on pucks -- pick your descriptor, but generally, everything they'd been during this strong stretch of play, they were not on this night.

"It was terrible game by us, so, of course, it's bad," said Stars forward Mattias Janmark, who was coming off two strong games, but suffered through a rather grisly outing Thursday, giving up the puck at the Toronto blue line and then falling while attempting to back check on the play that led to the Leafs' first goal with less than five minutes to go in the first period.

He then had a Nazem Kadri shot ricochet off him and then Dan Hamhuis before sailing past Ben Bishop for the third Leaf goal just shy of the midpoint of the second period, making the score 3-0.

"It's not good going into the break, just a terrible game," Janmark said. "Doesn't matter if it's the break coming up."

Video: Benn speaks to media after loss

2. 'Too many players under the bar'

No one will be saving the tape of this game (do they still tape games, by the way?), but after a long stretch of games where the supporting cast found ways to contribute to support the big line, the exact opposite was true Thursday.

"I was thinking in the third period, we wasted a really good performance by (Tyler) Seguin's line. That's the first thing I thought," Hitchcock said. "You don't get a line that dominates like that very often. And unfortunately, they didn't score on all their chances, but we just had too many players under the bar today."

He's right on both counts.

The big line was terrific and produced the team's only goal after some typically diligent work by Alexander Radulov in stealing the puck from Jake Gardiner and then backhanding a pass to Seguin in the slot to make it 3-1 late in the second period.

The trio combined for 20 shots and/or shot attempts in the game.

Seguin, along with John Klingberg, led all players with five shots on goal. But the rest of the group, so good during last weeks' 3-0-1 road trip and then Tuesday's 6-1 thrashing of Florida, were nonexistent -- or worse, a negative drag on the team.

"It's disappointing to finish that way. We know we're going into a break and we wanted to end it on a good night," said Jason Spezza, who was a minus-3 against the Leafs.

"We played some good hockey of late, but all that does is set up us up for a fight down the stretch. We have to collect ourselves, take some rest over these days and come back to some really important hockey."

The Leafs scored three times in less than 14 minutes of play from late in the first to the middle of the second period. By the end of the night, Dallas had outshot Toronto 40-29, but it didn't feel like that.

"I just don't think we were sharp enough tonight -- we didn't get enough pucks behind them," Spezza said. "We made it too easy for them to shorten the rink and play a counterattack game against us, and that's things we haven't been doing.

"Hopefully, we learned our lesson tonight."

3. Have some perspective on the final result

What, you thought the Stars might win 34 straight games to close out the season? Nope. And while it will stink to have the bitter taste of a pretty lackadaisical effort dogging them through until next Tuesday when the Kings come to town for their first meeting of the season, it becomes meaningful beyond the lost two points only if it begets more poor play.

The team's recent history suggests that shouldn't be a problem. The last time the Stars lost back-to-back games in regulation was in early December, when they lost three in a row against Nashville, St. Louis and Vegas. That seems like a long time ago. We'll have to wait until Tuesday to find out if that's the case.

"We've got to trust our game, but we've also got to prepare for a tough game and we've got to play a lot better than this. But we know we've played good lately and we've just got to get back to that," Janmark said.

Still, another indication that this might be just a blip on the radar is that this was just the second time in the last 12 games the Stars gave up more than three goals.

"We need to come to play every night, and can't take some nights off," Benn said. "They're a good team, they played well tonight, they deserve to win and we didn't have it. It's disappointing. There is no excuse, and when you don't play the way (Hitchcock) wants us to play, you're going to get results like that."

Video: Janmark on home loss to Leafs

4. Give credit to Toronto for taking advantage

There's no reason for the Stars to have been as sloppy as they were. But let's give some props to a Toronto team that came into town after a tough overtime win in Chicago 24 hours earlier and were relying on backup netminder Curtis McElhinney, who hadn't started since Dec. 20.

He was terrific. Not only did he stop 39 Dallas shots, he made key saves at key moments to keep his team firmly in control. His left toe/pad save off a hard, low Benn shot after a beautiful Klingberg pass from deep in the Toronto zone was a game changer coming in the second period and the Leafs up 2-0.

He later made another great left pad save on a Klingberg pass attempt to Janmark on a 2-on-1 that went off a sliding Roman Polak's stick. Not only did McElhinney stop the puck, he also didn't allow Polak to drive it into the Toronto net as part of his slide.

"I said the key was the first 10 minutes, and we did a tremendous job the first 10 minutes setting the pace of play and kind of easing into it. For myself, personally, it was great," McElhinney said. "It's feels good. Obviously, it's been a long layover. It's just the way the schedule's worked out. The last couple games (both losses) for me were tough personally, so this is a good way to bounce back tonight."

Asked about McElhinney's performance after such a long break, Toronto head coach Mike Babcock was succinct.

"That's what we pay him to do," he said.

Fair enough.

Video: TOR@DAL: Bishop kicks out the pad to deny Brown

5. Looking past the break

It will be interesting moving forward to see if either of the Stars missing big men, Marc Methot or Martin Hanzal, will be in the lineup when the Kings come to town.

They are both expected to skate through the break, and Hitchcock is hopeful they're close to rejoining the team. Much will be revealed when the team skates again next Monday afternoon.

Still, this is a game that cried out for either Methot's presence on the back end, given the turnovers (the team was credited with a whopping 23 on the night) that frustrated the Stars all evening, or Hanzal, whose physical presence -- when he's healthy enough to play -- changes the dynamics of the Dallas lineup at both ends of the ice.

On this night, that, like many things, was lacking.

This story was not subject to approval of the National Hockey League or Dallas Stars Hockey Club. You can follow Scott on Twitter at @OvertimeScottB, and listen to his Burnside Chats podcast here.