January 12, 2010 :: 5:35pm ET No time for excuses By Tracey Myers, TheFourthPeriod.com

[DALLAS, TX] -- The Dallas Stars were struggling enough as it was this season.

No, this isn't what was supposed to be for this 2009-10 Stars season. They put last year's brutal injury bug behind them. They were supposed to be better, supposed to be near the top of the Pacific Division again.

But they're not.

Yes, this season has been healthier – short-term dings instead of long-term injures – but that consistent game that used to be patented Dallas Stars still wasn't there. Offensive production, goaltending, defense, you name it and the Stars are on again, off again in it. Home games have been wonderful thus far, road games not so much.

It has Stars players shaking their heads. And then on Jan. 6 against the New York Rangers, center Mike Ribeiro took an accidental stick to the throat, suffering an injury that will keep him out the next 4-6 weeks.

As of Jan. 10, Ribeiro was still in the New York hospital where he underwent a tracheotomy to help ease the injury's damage.

No, Ribeiro was not having a very Ribeiro-like season. He never was a monster goal-scorer, but his assists, those pretty set-up passes for which he is known, are very low. In Marc Crawford's quicker system, the methodical Ribeiro just wasn't having the same success.

But he was still a player who got an opponent's attention, a magician who could pull some incredible tricks – and eye-rubbing passes – out of his hockey hat.

So as Ribeiro takes the next few weeks to heal and the Stars try to find their way back into the Western Conference race, the question is: Now what?

"We're struggling now, and to lose one of your top players, there's never a good time for that to happen," captain Brenden Morrow said. "It can't be one player stepping up. It has to be a collection."

Yes, but it helps if that collection was already on a steady pace. It hasn't.

Brad Richards and Loui Eriksson have provided just about all of the Stars' offense lately – James Neal was right up there, but has been quieter since moved from that top line.

Morrow has struggled to get points; Ribeiro had been, too (those two, so successful the past two seasons together, were split up a few weeks ago).

Steve Ott, who had a breakthrough season offensively in 2008-09, hasn't connected on those chances this season as he did the last.

Among defensemen, Stephane Robidas has been his typically stellar self, offensively and defensively. But he's been alone back there when it comes to getting on the scoresheet. Goaltending has been up and down.

Someone who's earned a leadership role with his play these past few seasons, Robidas echoed Morrow’s sentiments.

"We can't feel sorry for ourselves; we have to up our games," he said. "And that's not just one guy, that's everyone. That's the only way we're going to get out of this."

The truth is, however, that unless the Stars don't band together now, they may not get out of it.

They're playing most of their games on the road prior to the All-Star break, and that's been very, very bad (1-7-3 in their last 11 on the road after Jan. 10's loss to Columbus).

The Stars have banded together before. At the end of the 2007-08 regular season, when the Stars won just one game in March, things weren't looking good. But they regrouped and went to the Western Conference Finals for the first time since 2001.

The talent is there, even with one of their most talented sidelined. The will and execution has to be there, too.

"This is a critical time for us," Morrow said. "We need to stay with that (top eight) pack. Everyone else is collecting points. We're not doing it consistently enough."

Tracey Myers, a beat writer who covers the Dallas Stars for the Fort-Worth Star-Telegram, is the Dallas Correspondent for The Fourth Period Magazine and a Columnist for TheFourthPeriod.com.