The Wild and Winnipeg Jets have known for nearly a week that they would be playing in the first round of the Stanley Cup Playoffs.
Finally, after several days of buildup, the two Central Division rivals will get a chance to settle things on the ice as Game 1 begins Wednesday at 6 p.m. CT at Bell MTS Place.
Counting the preseason, these clubs -- located about 450 miles apart -- have met six times, but they haven't played since Jan. 13, a game the Wild won 4-1.
The last time the Wild and Jets played in Winnipeg was just after Thanksgiving, a contest Minnesota would soon rather forget -- a 7-2 Jets win. Winnipeg has won three of the four regular season meetings, with Minnesota taking its lone victory in the game in St. Paul in January.
"I think playoffs, everything is wiped clean," said Wild forward Eric Staal. "It doesn't matter what happened during the regular season. You gotta just focus on Game 1."
Despite the amount of time since the last game between the teams, don't expect much of a feeling out process.
"I think this first round is pretty easy to know what to expect and what's going to happen right off the bat - just because it's within the division," said Jets forward Paul Stastny. "I think with the playoffs since the lockout you're playing the same divisional teams all the time -- you're playing five, six times a year for so many years, and you're playing in the playoffs you know what to expect."
While this is the first time the Wild and Jets have played in the postseason, it is not the first time in this atmosphere for coach Bruce Boudreau, who led the Anaheim Ducks three years ago when it swept the Jets in four games, including Games 3 and 4 in Winnipeg.
But much has changed about the Jets since then, as only a handful of players remain from that roster while it has been bolstered by a number of quality young players.
"The roster of that team versus this team and they were nowhere near as good then]," Boudreau said. "Other than that they now have four games of playoff experience, Winnipeg this year is much deeper, much faster, much better."
Mark Scheifele was one of the few players on that team still with the club. Last time around, he was finishing his second full season in the League. Now 25 years old and with three more years under his belt, Scheifele is eager to get back to the postseason.
"[I] learned a lot from those four games and leading up to that and seeing what it takes to play," Scheifele said. "Anaheim was a great team and still are. But you learn a lot, you gain that experience, you gain experience over the last three years going through different adversities just through the season. You have to know it's going to be a tough test against Minnesota, it's going to be a grind each and every night."
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