O.C., California- Staffeln » The NHL’s return to Winnipeg

has been an instant success in the seats Philadelphia Flyers Hoodies Womens , with regular sellouts since the Jets arrived in 2011 for a second landing in the smallest market in the league.Progress on the ice has been measurably slower, with just one appearance in the playoffs in the first six years in wintry Manitoba after a struggling franchise moved north from Atlanta, but the patience of general manager Kevin Cheveldayoff has been rewarded and then some this season.Sporting the second-best record in the NHL, the Jets have carried the momentum of 11 wins in their last 12 games into their first-round series against Minnesota.They boast one of the game’s coveted prodigies in 19-year-old Patrik Laine and his 44 goals. They have a balanced roster that ranked second in the league in scoring and fifth in fewest goals against. They face the Wild on Wednesday night at home, where they’re an NHL-best 32-7-2 this season.”Enjoy it, right?” Jets coach Paul Maurice said. ”We work real hard to get to a place where there’s mounting pressure and mounting enthusiasm, and then we want to keep working to get to more and more and more. So you have to be a part of it. You have to enjoy it for sure.”Their time to take a big step forward to join the league’s elite has arrived. They even, considering their seed, represent the best hope to bring the Stanley Cup back to Canada for the first time since 1993.Toronto is the only other team that made the playoffs this year, and the Maple Leafs must start the first round on the road against the Boston Bruins.”You don’t know how many times you’re going to come across this opportunity,” goalie Connor Hellebuyck said, ”and especially now with the great team like we have here. I’m really excited to see what these guys bring.”With another series of ”Whiteout ” events planned for Bell MTS Place, with fans encouraged to wear white team gear to the arena and surrounding parties, the city has been buzzing all week even as winter again overstays its welcome.”I’m very excited. I can start feeling my body getting those butterflies,” Hellebuyck said.The knock against the Jets is the collective lack of postseason experience, with a four-game sweep by the Anaheim Ducks in 2015 serving as the only action in the playoffs for some of these players. Laine hadn’t even been drafted yet.That’s where the Wild have a clear advantage Philadelphia Flyers Hats Womens , with this their sixth straight appearance in the 16-team tournament.Though they were overshadowed in the Western Conference this season by the Jets, the Presidents’ Trophy-winning Nashville Predators and the expansion Vegas Golden Knights, the Wild posted the third-best record in franchise history. Center Eric Staal had 42 goals, his most in 12 years. Jason Zucker scored a career-high 33 goals. Their defensemen ranked second in the league with 200 points.”You really got to go through it to know what it’s about,” left wing Zach Parise said, adding: ”I know they’ve been short-lived the last couple years, but you hope with just being there that will help us.”Here are some other key angles to follow with the series:PALS IN PADSHellebuyck and Wild goalie Devan Dubnyk met last summer in British Columbia during training sessions and rounds of golf that forged a friendship, with Dubnyk encouraging Hellebuyck to keep his head up after the Jets signed Steve Mason to an $8.2 million contract.Sure enough, Mason stumbled early and Hellebuyck supplanted him as the primary netminder to tie for the NHL lead with 44 wins and finish eighth in goals-against average.”It’s been fun to watch but that’s enough now,” Dubnyk said. ”It’s been a great year for him, but I’ll stop cheering for him now.”SUTER OUT, SPURGEON INOne of the Wild’s greatest assets for this matchup will be absent, with a season-ending broken ankle for stalwart Ryan Suter, who tied a franchise defenseman record with 51 points in 78 games.The upside is that Jared Spurgeon, who missed the last 17 games with a torn hamstring, is on track to return. He practiced with one of the two power-play units on Tuesday Custom Philadelphia Flyers Jerseys , and coach Bruce Boudreau said he’d make a game-time decision about Spurgeon’s availability on Wednesday.WHEELS UPJets captain Blake Wheeler tied for the NHL lead with 68 assists this season and finished ninth with 91 points, fueling a potent first line with Kyle Connor and Mark Schiefele to take some of the scoring pressure off Laine.Wheeler played at Breck High School in the Twin Cities area and in college for Minnesota before turning pro. He has never missed more than three games in any regular season since his debut with Boston in 2008-09.CULLEN’S CUPSWild center Matt Cullen contributed a modest 11 goals and 11 assists from the fourth line, but the 41-year-old’s contribution transcends points. He’s played in 123 postseason games, winning three Stanley Cups including the past two with the Pittsburgh Penguins.”This is why we got him, his experience in positions like we’re in right now,” Boudreau said. ”So we’re hoping he’s going to be valuable.”— SAN JOSE, Calif. (AP) — It is only fitting that Connor McDavid, Auston Matthews and Nathan MacKinnon are serving as captains for this weekend’s NHL All-Star game.The three high-scoring forwards are 23 or younger. They are part of a youth movement that is taking over the NHL and will be on center stage when the league’s best players gather at the Shark Tank for their annual midseason celebration.“It’s a young man’s league,” said Chicago forward Patrick Kane, now an elder statesman at age 30. “These guys come in and maybe in the past your prime was 26, 27 or 28. Now your prime is maybe 22, 23 or 24. It’s definitely become a younger man’s game. A lot of teams these days are expecting their young draft picks and younger kids to come in and help the team right away. You’ll see more of these young guys get a chance.”Scoring is on pace for its highest mark in more than two decades heading into the All-Star break, thanks in large part to some skilled youngsters who will be on display this weekend like the three All-Star captains along with the league’s leading scorer, 25-year-old Nikita Kucherov of Tampa Bay, and 25-year-old Calgary star Johnny Gaudreau.None of the league’s top six scorers heading into the break has turned 26 and there are more All-Star skaters this weekend 22 and younger (11) than in their 30s (8). In all, 58 percent of the goals in the NHL this season have been scored by players 26 or younger.“That’s just the way the game is trending www.sanjosesharksteamshop.com ,” Matthews said. “It seems a lot younger now, a lot faster, more speed and more skill. A lot of younger guys are coming in and making an impact immediately. That wasn’t the case in years past but it’s kind of changing now. It’s pretty fun to see.”The league had long been looking to increase scoring by reducing the size of goalie pads, among other rules changes, and it seems to have finally materialized. Teams head into the break averaging 3.03 goals per game, which is on pace for the highest-scoring season since the 3.14 in 1995-96, when Mario Lemieux and Wayne Gretzky were still among the league’s biggest stars.There’s still a long way to go to get back to the level of the go-go 1980s, which featured a single-season team average of 4.01 goals per game in 1981-82 — the highest in the league since the end of World War II.But there has been an 18 percent increase in scoring since the post-expansion low of 2.57 goals per game for teams in 2003-04, before a lockout canceled the following season and led to rule changes.“The game’s being run by the twentysomethings now,” Tampa Bay coach Jon Cooper said. “Players have a positive arrogance when they come into the league that they can do anything and they try it. That’s what makes them so good. They’re not sitting there saying this might not be the right thing to do in this situation. Players are trying it and that’s why you’re seeing what you’re seeing with the skill level in this game. These players are so good.”There was a big jump in the first year back in 2005-06 thanks to a crackdown on stick work and obstruction that led to more power plays. But scoring fell gradually in the ensuing years and was down to 2.67 three years ago before starting to rise again.An influx of young stars like McDavid, Matthews, Mathew Barzal of the New York Islanders and Vancouver rookie Elias Pettersson helped contribute to the 13 percent jump in scoring in a three-year span.“I came in the league out of college and I was 22 or 23 and I was the youngest guy on the team,” Columbus 29-year-old forward Cam Atkinson said. “Now it’s unheard of if you don’t have two or three guys under the age of 20. It’s great for the sport. It’s a fast game and that’s what the fans want.”The surge hasn’t been limited to the youngsters. Washington’s Alex Ovechkin leads the NHL in goals with 37 at age 33 and was slated to be the fourth captain this weekend before deciding to stay home and rest.Hometown favorites Brent Burns and Joe Pavelski of the San Jose Sharks are also among the players posting big numbers this season. Burns leads all defensemen with 55 points, and Pavelski is tied for ninth with 27 goals, putting him on pace for a career-high 42 at age 34.