Reusse: Enough of this nonsense. It’s time for the Wild to make a deep Stanley Cup playoff run.

The Colorado Avalanche and the Wild should finish this season as the two best teams in the NHL, if their lineups are mostly healthy in the final 30% of the schedule that remains after the recent activities in Milan.

Presuming form follows in the first round, these two teams would then meet in the playoff quarterfinals. That would be due, of course, to NHL playoff seeding that’s based more on divisional standings than conference standings.

We would complain about that playoff setup here in Minnesota, as would the hockey fans in Colorado. I mean, everyone can agree that the next showdown of the world’s top defensemen, the magical Cale Makar for Canada and the Avs and the quintessential Quinn Hughes for the Wild and Team USA, should be for the right to play for the Stanley Cup — not for the right to play in the conference finals.

So, yes, the NHL playoff system might remain marginally messed up, but please look back in history if you want to see some amazing ice follies created by owners who were desperate to collect playoff gates.

The 2024-25 season was the 50th for the modern version of the NHL in Minnesota: Twenty-six seasons (1967-93) for the North Stars in Bloomington, and 24 seasons with the Wild in St. Paul (starting in 2000, with the owners’ lockout wiping away the 2004-05 season).

You want to get a headache? Go back and look at the NHL after what Louie Nanne and his henchmen wrought in June 1978:

The league allowed the Cleveland Barons to merge into the North Stars to create one team.

I’ve long contended that Lou the Hoodwinker pulled off his greatest gambit by being allowed to take the best players from the Barons ... without having to give up the right to draft Smith.

Here’s something I had forgotten: The North Stars spent three seasons as a replacement for Cleveland in the Adams Division with Buffalo, Boston, Quebec and Toronto (lovingly labeled the Maple Loafs by Chris Berman, a young host on the fledgling ESPN).

The NHL was advancing 16 of 21 teams to the playoffs at that time. In 1981, the playoffs were seeded by overall points: 1 to 16. The North Stars, ninth overall, shocked Boston in a 3-0 opening sweep.

Game 1 was April 8 at Boston Garden. This was 41 days after coach Glen Sonmor decided it was time for his North Stars to stop taking guff from the bad, bad Bruins.

The fights in the Garden on Feb. 26, 1981, started at the opening faceoff. The game ended with 81 penalties, 406 penalty minutes and 12 ejections. The first period took 91 minutes of actual time. And if anyone ever suggested to Sonmor that toughness was overrated in hockey, he would guarantee the February riot at the faceoff set up the sweep of the Bruins.

The ads on TV and in the local dailies before the 1981-82 season blared: “So Close We Can Taste It.” And that was the best-ever Stars team, piling up 94 points when there were still ties (no bonus points for overtime wins).

They were back in a division with mid-American teams and drew the Blackhawks (72 points) in a best-of-five opening series. Chicago won in four games.

That ‘82 North Stars team — that one had a real chance to win it all and didn’t get out of the first round.

“They got Bannerman-ed in that series,” said Judd Zulgad, media guy now, North Stars fanatic then. “Murray Bannerman, Chicago’s goalie, beat the Stars in that series, just like [Connor] Hellebuyck beat the Canadians for the U.S. on Sunday in the Olympics.”

There was another run to the Stanley Cup Final in ‘91 that was one of those hockey impossibilities — the North Stars, 16th among 21 teams in points, getting upsets (thank you, Jon Casey) all the way to the Final, before an 8-0 loss to Pittsburgh in Game 6 at the Met Center.

That’s it — 24 seasons, getting through the second round once.

Once.

And in 50 seasons, FIFTY, one legitimate terrific team to reach a Stanley Cup Final.

Enough of this nonsense.

This Wild team has five of the 25 to 30 best players in the NHL: Hughes, Matt Boldy, Brock Faber, Joel Eriksson Ek and the well-rested Russian star, Kirill Kaprizov.

The talent is here. After Milan, the fans here can taste it. And so do Colorado’s.