Sometimes, math helps us. And sometimes, it gets to tell us what teams are guaranteed to meet in the first round of the Stanley Cup Playoffs a week before the season is over.

With all the calculations and beeps and boops, it has been revealed that mathematically the Minnesota Wild and Dallas Stars will be facing one another in the first round of the playoffs, as the No. 2 and No. 3 seed in the Central division. But, what has not been decided is who gets to have the home-ice advantage.

The Avalanche have climbed their way back to dominance, with 112 points and still five games remaining on their schedule. Below them, the Stars sit with 104 and the Wild sit with 102 and much, much, much further below the top three Central teams are the Utah Mammoth with a measly 88 points. So, mathematically, the series has been decided.

But, ever since the Avalanche started their season red-hot — and really never slowed down except a small blip — and the Stars and Wild seemed healthy enough, this series was going to happen. Maybe out of everything this season leaguewide, the Wild and Stars colliding in the first round was the most certain thing.

And the best part of this being decided as a certainty, is that this Thursday, the Stars and Wild face off against one another as a pre-series matchup, potentially just over a week before Game 1.

That’s Wild

The Wild’s new penalty kill is a lie. [Hockey Wilderness]

Both Vlad Tarasenko and Ryan Hartman have provided the Wild a whole lot of dependable, secondary scoring throughout the season. [Hockey Wilderness]

Filip Gustavsson took some parts of Marc-Andre Fleury’s game to become a dependable starter for the Wild. [Hockey Wilderness]

Wild coast by Kraken to the tune of 5-2 Tuesday night. [StarTribune]

Off the trail…

Former Maple Leafs general manager Brad Treliving was a dead man walking after a bad trade deadline. [EIL]

A potential first-round matchup is the Oilers facing off against the Mammoth. And, well, Connor McDavid and his team just lost to Utah. That could be interesting. [Sportsnet]

 

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