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Owen Nolan scored two goals and added an assist as the Minnesota Wild halted a three-game losing streak to defeat the Red Wings by a 5-2 score Saturday night in Saint Paul. Goaltender Nicklas Backstrom turned aside 35 of 37 Detroit shots as the Red Wings suffered just the third loss in the club's last 10 games. Goaltender Jimmy Howard turned away 24 of the 28 shots he faced in the loss.

Things didn't start off well for Detroit as the Wild quickly lept to a 2-0 lead. Spurred on by sloppy play out of the gate Nolan gave Minnesota a 1-0 lead 2:50 in and then made it 2-0 with a power play goal at 8:15.

The Red Wings were outshot 13-8 over the first 20 minutes.

Detroit cut the lead to 2-1 in the second period when forward Tomas Kopecky -- who was on his way to Minnesota with the team when his second son, Tobias, was born -- scored his 3rd goal of the season 2:55 into the period.

The Red Wings appeared to be slowly taking the game over in the period before a pair of turnovers led to two Minnesota goals. A cross ice pass in the Minnesota zone was intercepted by Nolan and the forward sprung Pierre-Marc Bouchard on a breakaway in which he beat Howard low to the stick side at 17:13. Defenseman Martin Skoula scored his first goal of the season following a surprising misplay by Pavel Datsyuk. Mikku Koivu picked Datsyuk's pocket at the goalline and fed a pass across the slot to Skoula, who ripped it into the open net.

Detroit cut the lead to 4-2 late in the third period when Brian Rafalski scored his 9th goal at 14:45, but it would be as close as the Red Wings would get.

Stephane Veilleux closed out the scoring with an empty net goal with two seconds remaining.

Detroit went 0-for-5 on the power play. Minnesota finished 1-for-3.