It's hard to pick an aspect of the game where the Leafs played well, turning what could have been a coin-flip into a routine win for Dallas.

Injuries usually pile up as a season progresses, which has been the case for the Maple Leafs — especially on the backend. Veteran defensemen Jake McCabe (upper body) and Jani Hakanpaa (knee) are currently on injured reserve, meaning it wouldn't be shocking if general manager Brad Treliving wanted to add another defender shortly.

The Dallas Stars face the Toronto Maple Leafs Tuesday night for the second and final time this season. Entering Tuesday's match, the Stars are 27-14-1 while the Maple Leafs are 27-15-2. Dallas is 93-99-33 all-time vs. Toronto, including a 39-55-20 mark on the road.

Three straight regulation losses aren't a good sign. Exactly how much of a problem are the various underlying trends?

Last night, the Toronto Maple Leafs hosted the Dallas Stars, and they didn’t get the result they were hoping for. They came into the game as losers of two in a row and coming off what might have been their worst effort of the season against the Vancouver Canucks.

The Toronto Maple Leafs head coach felt his players delivered. The result, however, was more of the same. And now a team that did well to grasp a new system in the first half of the NHL season is facing its first real bumps in the road.