Postgame Hat Trick: Wild 4, Stars 2

Wild.com's Dan Myers gives three takeaways from the Wild's 4-2 win against the Dallas Stars at Xcel Energy Center in St. Paul on Wednesday night:

1. Step one is done for the Wild, which began a critical week of games against Central Division foes.
Minnesota began the night four points back of Dallas in the standings, while also possessing one game in hand. A loss would have been a tough pill to swallow, especially as the team sought to get its virtual second half moving in a positive direction.
With back-to-back games against the now division-leading Nashville Predators on tap this weekend, the game Wednesday wasn't a must-win. But it sure was important.

"I didn't want to talk about it being a huge game, but it was a huge game," said Wild coach Bruce Boudreau. "We called it the start of the second half. You get a chance to reset. I likened it this morning to a game of golf where we played the first nine holes and probably aren't as happy as we'd like to be but we can always make it up by having a great back nine. It's only one game. It was a good divisional start."
Players talked last week about the Christmas break coming at a good time. But the first game back from the holiday has traditionally been a tough one for Minnesota through the years. It wasn't that way on Wednesday, as Minnesota scored late in the first to tie the game and never trailed again.
Second-period goals by Eric Staal and Mikael Granlund set the stage for a decisive third period, a frame in which the Wild has struggled in recent weeks.
Minnesota had no such issues against the Stars, zealously defending its lead and even outshooting Dallas 11-6 over the final 20, eventually daggering the visitors on an empty-net goal by Jason Zucker with 45 ticks remaining.

"We talked about it. We knew what we had to do, and I think the best thing was the refresh," said Wild goaltender Alex Stalock. "You get a refresh, you get three days off, you get time to go home and clear the brain and all of a sudden you come back tonight and watch what they did in the third period."
Stalock, who made 24 saves, was there when he had to be as well, including late chances on Alexander Radulov and Mattias Janmark to preserve the lead.

"I think the players also know that [third periods have] been a chore," Boudreau said. "They were mad at that. I think they beared down. I thought we had probably our best third period in a while."
2. The line of Staal, Tyler Ennis and Charlie Coyle looked good.
Staal scored Minnesota's second goal (and his team-leading 15th of the season) 5:12 into the second period while Coyle dished out a pair of assists. Ennis also had an assist but was the key player on the Wild's first goal of the game, when he spearheaded a rush chance into the offensive zone and fired a low shot at Stars goaltender Ben Bishop.
Bishop couldn't corral the initial shot and Coyle shoveled it over to a crashing Jared Spurgeon, as Minnesota scored in the final minute of the first period.

Ennis was also the other component on the 2-on-1 rush that resulted in Staal's goal, when Staal's centering feed (intended for Ennis) bounced past Bishop off of a Stars defenseman.

"They were very good. Opportunistic. Ennis was skating. They were making plays," Boudreau said. "They could've had a couple more goals I thought. That's what we need from that line."

All three players on the line finished a plus-2.
Ennis earned 15 minutes, 18 seconds of ice time, his third-highest total of the season and most since he skated in 15:44 against Philadelphia on Nov. 14.
The points haven't come in bunches for the winger yet, but he said he feels his game is starting to round into shape. His confidence is certainly on the rise.
"I'm getting a little more opportunity, a little more ice time and I'm playing with some really good players," Ennis said. "It was fun, I think we played well. We knew we had to keep it simple and when we kept it simple, we generated a lot of chances."
"When [Ennis] plays like that, it's fun to watch, fun to play with. He's a special player," Coyle said. "When he's going like that, hanging onto the puck and patient, it's fun to watch, like I said, fun to play with. We want to keep that going."
3. Both teams got power-play goals during a three minute stretch of the second period.
After Minnesota's Daniel Winnik was whistled for a slashing penalty, it took Dallas just 10 seconds to capitalize. Tyler Seguin, who scored the first goal of the game 12:37 into the contest, used the power of geometry to bank the puck off the end wall to Janmark near the right post for a chipshot into the goal.
Not surprisingly, the Wild were given a power-play chance of its own a couple of minutes later, and in a delicious bit of irony, Minnesota capitalized -- you guessed it -- just 10 seconds in.
This time is was Granlund, scoring off a Plinko'd puck that initially came off the stick of Mikko Koivu and was re-directed at Bishop by Jason Zucker, the rebound of which went right into Granlund's wheelhouse at the bottom of the left circle.

"We haven't had a lot of luck [on the power play]," Boudreau said. "We moved the puck quick and we shot the puck. When you do those two things, just those two things, you're going to have success on the power play. When you move it slow and you don't shoot, you look for the perfect play, very rarely do you get it. We got it. As soon as it touched Mikko's stick he shot it, Zucker was in front and tipped it, and then that makes them as a defense run around, and the puck went to [Granlund] and he was in a great spot."
The helper was Zucker's first point since Dec. 10 at San Jose, snapping a seven-game dry spell. His late empty-netter was his first goal since Dec. 8 in Anaheim, which was also the last time he had multiple points.
For Koivu, the assist was his first since Nov. 24, a span of 15 games.
"It's important every single time, when you have the lead, it makes the other team chase the game a little bit and you can play your own game," Granlund said. "Hopefully we can play with the lead a little bit more here. It's more fun."

Loose pucks

• Wednesday's game marked the 800th behind the bench for Wild coach Bruce Boudreau in the NHL.
• Spurgeon and Jonas Brodin each finished the game a plus-2.
• Spurgeon led the Wild with four blocked shots.
• Minnesota finished 1-for-3 with the man advantage. Dallas was 1-for-4.
• Bishop stopped 27 of 30 shots.
• Minnesota has won five of its past six games against Dallas dating to the start of last season (5-0-1) and has an eight-game point streak overall (6-0-2).
• The loss snapped a two-game winning streak for the Stars.
• Attendance: 19,107

He said it

"It's huge. We've got to start in one direction and that's up. Tonight was a start of what we're essentially calling the second half here, so tonight was a good start." -- Wild goaltender Alex Stalock

They said it

"It was our poorest effort by a mile. We were light everywhere; light on the puck, light around our net, light around their net. This looked like the way we played a month and a half ago." -- Stars coach Ken Hitchcock

Three stars

* Jared Spurgeon
\\ Mikael Granlund
\\* Joel Eriksson Ek