Darroll Powe's plucky play ignites Wild's 5-2 victory over Dallas Stars

On the score sheet, Darroll Powe had one hit, one blocked shot and two penalties. But Powe supplied the inspiration as the Wild , who had lost 15 of their previous 17 games and had scored just 27 goals in those games, rediscovered their offense and dumped the Dallas Stars 5-2 in the headline game of Hockey Day Minnesota on Saturday night at the Xcel Energy Center. Powe and the Stars' Steve Ott tangled twice - one resulted in twin roughing penalties; one in twin fighting penalties - and the next thing you knew, the Wild had scored three goals in a franchise-record 59 seconds of the second period to take charge. "Talk about individual efforts that can spark a team, that's about as good as it gets," Wild center Matt Cullen said. "That's a guy going out and leading his own way. That was huge for our team; you could feel the spirits lift on the bench." Minnesota's season had turned into a slog of late, and the score was 1-1 when Powe and Ott first tangled midway through the second period. Dallas retook the lead while both players were in the box, and just after they came out, Ott challenged Powe again. Ott might have won the fight, but the Wild responded with three goals before he and Powe got back out of the penalty box. Wild players on the bench appeared angry that Ott slugged Powe when Powe was down on the ice. "Emotionally, he gave our bench a huge lift," Wild coach Mike Yeo said. "The guys were pumped about what he was willing to do for them." Less than two minutes after the fight between Ott and Powe, Cal Clutterbuck passed to Cullen, who passed to Clutterbuck for a backhander to tie the score. Just 14 seconds later, rookie Chad Rau earned a postgame pie in the face from Clutterbuck by scoring his first NHL goal in the Eden Prairie native's first NHL game, deflecting in a shot off Brenden Morrow's stick for the game-winner. Exactly 45 seconds later, Dany Heatley hit Kyle Brodziak with a cross-ice pass to the open left corner of the net, and the Wild led 4-2. Rau, who joined the Minnesota lineup along with Jed Ortmeyer, Matt Kassian and Nate Prosser after the four were called up from the American Hockey League on Friday, said he didn't see the puck go in, but he didn't care. "I couldn't have asked for anything better than this," he said. "It was just awesome." While the newcomers supplied energy, Yeo said this was the kind of game the Wild have been searching for during a tailspin dating to mid-December. Up and down the lineup, he said, players came with the right attitude. Dallas led 1-0 and 2-1, but unlike in their recent games, the Wild bounced back. "I think it was just having the mentality of being ready to just go north with it," Clutterbuck said of Minnesota's play with the puck. "There weren't many D-to-D passes, there weren't many saucer passes; it was right up to the winger and shove it right back down their throat. When you do that it doesn't really give the other team a chance to get their game going because they're always stopping and going back and retrieving pucks."