Somebody declare it over, please, before playoff hockey gets a bad rap.

Simply put, the Oilers have been non-competitive. Disinterested. Maybe scared. It sure looked that way in a 3-0 loss Thursday night at Reunion Arena.

As hard as they fought down the stretch just to make this tournament, this is what they give us with the Stanley Cup on the line? They should be ashamed. Surely that gritty Vancouver club that barely missed the field would have distinguished itself better than these Oilers. So would Anaheim, or even Alberta rival Calgary. Certainly, any of those teams would have competed harder than we're seeing from Edmonton.

Kirk Muller, Brett Hull and Scott Thornton scored the goals. Under-worked goaltender Eddie Belfour made 17 saves for his eighth career playoff shutout.

The series now shifts to Edmonton for Games 3 and 4. At least that's what the playoff schedule says. But anyone with even a passing knowledge of the game can see all the trappings of a four-game sweep.

"This series isn't coming back to Dallas," one Western Conference rival scout said.

"It's calmed down to nothing," said another scout. "I'm going to have to make stuff up to make this one sound interesting."

This is the fourth consecutive spring Dallas and Edmonton have met early in the playoffs, and the series have grown progressively less competitive since the Oilers upset the Stars with a Game 7 overtime victory in 1997. Since then, Dallas is 10-1 in the postseason against Edmonton. The Stars have won six in a row, and the Oilers seemed baffled to explain why their series looks like men against boys.

Edmonton managed only 21 shots in the first five periods of this series. The Oilers had three shots in the first period, four in the second. It wasn't until the Stars lost interest after building a 3-0 lead that Edmonton began to pad its shots-on-goal total.

"You want to play better. You want to win so bad it's killing you," Oilers forward Georges Laraque said. "We're 0-6 now in two years against this team. It's very frustrating. But the biggest frustration is the shots on net. We're getting three a period. Ed Belfour is a great goaltender and you're never going to beat him with three shots in a period."

What to do if you're the Edmonton Oilers then? Tighten up defensively.

They're so concerned about scoring the first goal early in the game that they take too many chances offensively. One mistake against the Stars, and you're behind on the scoreboard. And when Dallas is on its game defensively, 1-0 is an insurmountable lead.

That's what happened Thursday when Mike Modano pounced on a loose puck and streaked into the Oilers zone. In one of the prettiest plays you'll see in the entire playoffs, Modano passed the puck behind him blindly, between his legs, the puck hitting the tape of Hull's stick at the blue line. In a single motion, Hull swept the puck to Muller trailing the play on the left wing. The puck hit Muller in full stride, and he flipped it in off goaltender Tommy Salo's blocker to score the rarest of playoff goals -- off the rush.

The Stars' Kirk Muller (left) is congratulated on his goal by teammate Mike Modano.(AP)

It's almost unfair, what stood as the winning goal scored by the Stars' fourth line with Modano double-shifting for the second consecutive game. Modano and Hull were two-thirds of Dallas' top line in the Stars' championship run last spring.

But one goal was plenty against an Oilers group that appeared reluctant to jump over the boards at times.

"They always get that first goal and that's so huge," Laraque said. "Then they just play their game."

Dallas coach Ken Hitchcock, worried that his own team might have trouble producing goals in these playoffs, made it a priority for his team to limit the opponents' scoring opportunities with strong defensive play.

"And these last two games are the best we've played positionally in quite a while," he said.

Maybe since last spring.

Of course, both teams generally stuck to the script, spouting the usual clichés. The Oilers talked of working harder, playing desperate and with confidence at home in front of their raucous fans. The Stars talked of how victory is more difficult as each series progresses.

"This series is not for the faint of heart," Hitchcock said.

Which is precisely why Edmonton doesn't belong here any more.