{"id":252943,"date":"2026-04-16T17:56:10","date_gmt":"2026-04-16T17:56:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/252943\/"},"modified":"2026-04-16T17:56:10","modified_gmt":"2026-04-16T17:56:10","slug":"wild-vs-stars-minnesotas-playoff-journey-starts-saturday-in-dallas","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/252943\/","title":{"rendered":"Wild vs. Stars: Minnesota&#8217;s playoff journey starts Saturday in Dallas"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The Minnesota Wild will begin the real chase for the Stanley Cup on Saturday against the Dallas Stars in Dallas.<\/p>\n<p>Puck drop is set for 4:30 p.m., and Game 1 will air on ESPN and SportsNet, the league announced Thursday.<\/p>\n<p>The NHL says the full first-round schedule will be announced after the regular season ends Thursday night.<\/p>\n<p>Minnesota closed the regular season Tuesday with a <a href=\"https:\/\/kstp.com\/minnesota-sports\/wallstedt-makes-35-saves-for-wild-in-a-3-2-win-over-the-ducks-in-a-playoff-tuneup-for-both-teams\/\" type=\"link\" id=\"https:\/\/kstp.com\/minnesota-sports\/wallstedt-makes-35-saves-for-wild-in-a-3-2-win-over-the-ducks-in-a-playoff-tuneup-for-both-teams\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener nofollow\">3-2 win over the Anaheim Ducks<\/a>, giving the Wild 104 points \u2014 third-most in the Western Conference.<\/p>\n<p>The Stars finished second in the Western Conference, setting up a first-round series between the Central Division rivals.<\/p>\n<p>The Wild have not advanced past the first round of the playoffs since 2015.<\/p>\n<p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tFor Related Stories:\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/kstp.com\/tag\/minnesota-wild\/\" rel=\"tag nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Minnesota Wild<\/a>\u00a0\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/kstp.com\/tag\/nhl\/\" rel=\"tag nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">NHL<\/a>\u00a0\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/kstp.com\/tag\/wild\/\" rel=\"tag nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Wild<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Minnesota Wild will begin the real chase for the Stanley Cup on Saturday against the Dallas Stars&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":252944,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[102,104,103,2960,2484,14950],"class_list":["post-252943","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-dallas","tag-dallas","tag-dallas-headlines","tag-dallas-news","tag-minnesota-wild","tag-nhl","tag-wild"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/252943","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=252943"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/252943\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/252944"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=252943"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=252943"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=252943"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}