The official schedule released around lunchtime on Thursday shows the Minnesota Wild opening the 2025 NHL playoffs at 9 p.m. CT on Easter Sunday, in Las Vegas versus the Golden Knights.

But with the 20 guys in red and green spending the past few weeks fighting tooth and nail for every available standings point, and needing 81 games, 59 minutes and 48 seconds to secure their place among the 16 teams still playing, it feels like the playoffs began sometime in late March.

“I think that’s gonna help us, big time, just being in that mindset,” Wild forward Marcus Foligno said, following their last full practice in St. Paul on Thursday morning. “I think the last two playoffs, we’ve gone into it a little bit loose. Not saying that’s wrong, but when you rest guys, you get away from that mentality of the pressure games. I feel like what we’ve been doing for the past month is gonna help us and pay dividends.”

If not for Joel Eriksson Ek’s tying goal with less than 30 seconds left in the regular season finale on Tuesday, the Wild would have spent Thursday night glued to the TV, hoping for a Kings win versus Calgary to get Minnesota into the playoffs. Instead, they took care of it on their own.

The Wild faced the Golden Knights three times in the regular season at lost each time, 3-2 in St. Paul in December, 4-1 in Vegas in January, and 5-1 at Xcel Energy Center in March in a close game that slipped away late. One Wild defenseman noted that all three if those games were on the second of back-to-backs.

So, the Wild hope having extra rest and time to focus on one opponent will make a difference in April.

John Hynes made the playoffs once with the Devils in his four full seasons in New Jersey. His Predators teams played in the postseason in three out of his four seasons in Nashville. Now he has the Wild in the playoffs in his first full season in Minnesota. While Hynes has yet to get a team past Round 1, he said that the character of a playoff series changes notably from game to game. And, he said, those are situations his team has been feeling for weeks now.

“Game 1, people are going to be nervous. You’ve got to go in and play. And then all of sudden everything changes,” he said. “Dynamics change, and eventually there’s going to be a differentiating game in the series, where you can get to that third game and then there’s a close-out game. And there’s a mentality you deal with the night before a game, playing through it.

“We’ve had multiple opportunities to test ourselves, and some of them we’ve come through and some of them we haven’t. So, I think at least for us going into this series, we’ve had to fight to get there and it’s going to be no different in the series.”

PLAYOFF SCHEDULE

The NHL announced the dates for all of the Wild’s first-round, best-of-seven series against Vegas, and times and TV for the first four. All times CDT.

GAME 1: Sunday at Vegas, 9 p.m.,

GAME 2: Tuesday at Vegas, 10 p.m.

GAME 3: Thursday at Xcel Energy Center, 8 p.m,

GAME 4: Saturday at Xcel Energy Center, 3 p.m.

GAME 5: Tuesday at Vegas, TBD (if necessary)

GAME 6: Thursday at Xcel Energy Center, TBD (if necessary)

GAME 7: Tuesday at Vegas, TBD (if necessary)

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Minnesota added 10,700 jobs in March, the largest monthly gain in a year, and the state’s unemployment rate rose to 3.1%, according to data released Thursday by the state Department of Employment and Economic Development.

The state’s unemployment rate was up 0.1 percentage point from last month, and compared with 4.2% nationally, DEED said. The rise in unemployment, even though state added jobs, can be attributed to more people entering the workforce. More than 2,700 Minnesotans joined the labor force last month, bring the labor force participation rate to 68.2%. This measures the percentage of Minnesotans either working or actively seeking work, and is used to calculate the headline unemployment rate.

Minnesota’s overall job growth last month rose 0.4%, four times faster than the national rate of 0.1%; Minnesota’s private sector grew twice as fast as the U.S. overall.

“Minnesota’s job market has shown impressive resilience in the face of unprecedented uncertainty from the federal government,” DEED Commissioner Matt Varilek said in a statement. “This month we added jobs at a much faster rate than the nation as a whole as employers continue hiring, and more Minnesotans joined the labor force to look for work.”

Eight of 11 state employment supersectors gained jobs in March, with particularly strong growth in construction, up 1,900 jobs, or 1.4%. Government employment was up 1,500 over the month in March, with all growth coming from local and state governments. Federal employment was steady. Recent federal mass layoff announcements are not yet reflected in this data because these estimates are based on employers’ reporting of payroll jobs.

Minnesota has gained 37,581 jobs over the past year, faster than the national rate of growth. The private sector gained 29,579 jobs — in line with the national average.

“Minnesota has a diverse economy, allowing us to weather shifts in broader macroeconomic trends,” said Angelina Nguyen, director of DEED’s Labor Market Information Office.

Of alternative measures of unemployment, the broadest, called the U-6, increased to 6.9% in March, up from 6.6% in February and 5.4% a year ago, DEED said. This measure factors in people who have voluntarily left the labor force, such as stay-at-home parents, discouraged workers who have stopped seeking jobs, and part-time or otherwise marginally employed workers.

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Minnesota added 10,700 jobs in March, the largest monthly gain in a year, and the state’s unemployment rate rose to 3.1%, according to data released Thursday by the state Department of Employment and Economic Development.

The state’s unemployment rate was up 0.1 percentage point from last month, and compared with 4.2% nationally, DEED said. The rise in unemployment, even though state added jobs, can be attributed to more people entering the workforce. More than 2,700 Minnesotans joined the labor force last month, bring the labor force participation rate to 68.2%. This measures the percentage of Minnesotans either working or actively seeking work, and is used to calculate the headline unemployment rate.

Minnesota’s overall job growth last month rose 0.4%, four times faster than the national rate of 0.1%; Minnesota’s private sector grew twice as fast as the U.S. overall.

“Minnesota’s job market has shown impressive resilience in the face of unprecedented uncertainty from the federal government,” DEED Commissioner Matt Varilek said in a statement. “This month we added jobs at a much faster rate than the nation as a whole as employers continue hiring, and more Minnesotans joined the labor force to look for work.”

Eight of 11 state employment supersectors gained jobs in March, with particularly strong growth in construction, up 1,900 jobs, or 1.4%. Government employment was up 1,500 over the month in March, with all growth coming from local and state governments. Federal employment was steady. Recent federal mass layoff announcements are not yet reflected in this data because these estimates are based on employers’ reporting of payroll jobs.

Minnesota has gained 37,581 jobs over the past year, faster than the national rate of growth. The private sector gained 29,579 jobs — in line with the national average.

“Minnesota has a diverse economy, allowing us to weather shifts in broader macroeconomic trends,” said Angelina Nguyen, director of DEED’s Labor Market Information Office.

Of alternative measures of unemployment, the broadest, called the U-6, increased to 6.9% in March, up from 6.6% in February and 5.4% a year ago, DEED said. This measure factors in people who have voluntarily left the labor force, such as stay-at-home parents, discouraged workers who have stopped seeking jobs, and part-time or otherwise marginally employed workers.

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Dave St. Peter, as was tradition, got on stage this January during the Twins’ media luncheon to speak about a variety of business topics. Among them, ticket sales.

“This year our target is two million-plus tickets,” St. Peter said in one of his last appearances as the Twins president. “It’s my belief we can get there in 2025, and hopefully well beyond.”

Through the first nine home games, attendance figures haven’t been promising, and on Monday the Twins announced an attendance of 10,240 fans for a loss to the New York Mets, the lowest of any game at Target Field not played during the 2020 and 2021 seasons, when there were restrictions on the number of fans through the gates because of the coronavirus pandemic.

In three games against the Mets, a big-market team that attracts local fans wherever they play, the Twins announced crowds of 10,240, 12,507 and 19,721 attendees. The team is currently averaging 17,995 fans per game, which was 24th in the majors as of Thursday afternoon.

Of course, April in Minnesota is never the best month for attendance, and those figures should rise as the weather warms up. But that number lags behind where the Twins were a season ago, when they drew an average of 19,595 fans per game through their first nine home games.

Last year’s collapse down the stretch combined with a slow start to the season — the Twins have won two in a row but are 7-12 — has not done much to help the matter.

The Twins have not drawn two million fans in a season since 2019, the year they won 101 games. To reach that mark, the team would need to average around 24,692 fans across 81 games. Attendance hit 1,974,124 in 2023 and dropped to 1,951,616 last year.

Injury updates

The Twins placed Matt Wallner on the injured list on Thursday retroactive to April 16 with a left hamstring strain. The outfielder suffered the injury in Tuesday’s game against the Mets legging out an infield hit.

To fill Wallner’s spot on the roster, the Twins added Jonah Bride, acquired Wednesday for cash from the Miami Marlins. Bride, a 29-year-old infielder, was off to a slow start at the plate — 4 for 40 through his first 12 games before being designated for assignment.

Last season, however, Bride hit .276 with 11 home runs and 39 RBIs in 71 games with the Marlins, and his . 120 OPS+ is 20 percent better than the league-average hitter.

There could be more roster moves coming soon.

The Twins will need to assess utilityman Willi Castro after Thursday’s off day. Castro left Wednesday’s game early with oblique tightness, a move which manager Rocco Baldelli said was precautionary.

Shortstop Carlos Correa has been dealing with a wrist issue after tweaking it on Tuesday. He appeared late in Wednesday’s game to play the field but did not hit. After the game, he said his wrist had been feeling better.

On the pitching side, the Twins announced rehab assignments for starter Pablo López (hamstring), who will pitch for Triple-A St. Paul on Saturday in Iowa, and Michael Tonkin (shoulder), who will start a rehab assignment on Friday at Class A Fort Myers.

Fellow reliever Brock Stewart (hamstring) has been rehabbing in Fort Myers, and pitching for the Mussels has struck out five of the six batters he has faced. He could be ready to rejoin the Twins’ bullpen soon.

And in Minneapolis, third baseman Royce Lewis, also dealing with a hamstring strain, was scheduled to do some light base running on Thursday. The Twins will have a better sense of a timeframe for Lewis, who got injured a month ago during a spring training game, based on how he responds this weekend.

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