The Colorado Avalanche officially clinched both the Central Division regular season title and the top seed in the Western Conference on Tuesday night with a 3-1 win over the St. Louis Blues at Enterprise Center. That confirms what we all suspected for months, the Dallas Stars and the Minnesota Wild will face each other in the first round of the 2026 Stanley Cup Playoffs. The only question that remains is who will finish in second place in the Central and thus control home ice advantage? The Stars maintain a two point lead over the Wild with four games remaining and a massive showdown between the two clubs on Thursday night in Dallas. At 2:15 p.m., we will be joined by Jess Myers, Minnesota Wild beat writer for the St. Paul Pioneer Press to get the opposition perspective of this fierce Central Division rivalry. Also on today’s show, we’ll get a practice update from Sam, Luds will revisit last Saturday’s Alumni panel that he moderated, featuring Jim Nill, Tom Gaglardi, Angela James, Joe Nieuwendyk and Brett Hull. We will also discuss Jamie Benn being nominated for the 2025-26 Bill Masterton Memorial Trophy by the Dallas chapter of the Professional Hockey Writers Association. We will crown the winner of our 2026 DLLS Diehard Only March Madness Bracket Challenge and update the standings of our DLLS Diehard Only NCAA Frozen Four Bracket Challenge. If we have any time left after all that, we’ll look at the daily chaos of the battle for NHL playoff spots in both conferences.