MLS playoffs begin Wednesday. Here’s what you need to know.

The MLS playoffs start Wednesday night, with play-in games between the No. 8 and 9 seeds in each conference. The Chicago Fire, finally back in the playoffs after eight years, play host to Orlando City in the first game (7:30 p.m. on Apple TV), and the Portland Timbers play host to Real Salt Lake in the second (9:30 p.m., also on Apple TV).

Once the play-in winners officially set the field, the remaining eight teams in each conference will play best-of-three first-round series, with the higher seeds hosting Game 1 and (if necessary) Game 3.

Minnesota United is the fourth seed in the Western Conference and will meet the fifth-seeded Seattle Sounders in the first round, starting Monday.

In the first-round series, no extra time is played if the games are tied at the end of regulation. Instead, the matches go directly to a penalty shootout. This made shootouts a common feature in last year’s playoffs – including for Minnesota and Seattle, who both advanced last season by winning two opening-round shootouts.

The benefit of the extended first-round series is that each of the top eight seeds will get to host at least one playoff game. And, of course, Apple TV and FOX will get double or triple the number of first-round games to put on TV.

The downside is that the series drastically extend the schedule. Each of the next three weekends is reserved for first-round games, and the week after that is another FIFA international break. The conference semifinals, conference finals and MLS Cup are one-off knockout games, not series, but won’t be played until the second half of November. the MLS Cup game is set for Dec. 6.

Forget a final-day loss that dropped them out of the Western Conference’s top spot and into the second seed: Since German veteran Thomas Müller arrived in Vancouver, the Whitecaps have been perhaps the best team in MLS. Whitecaps manager Jesper Sørensen is the favorite to be named MLS Coach of the Year, and Vancouver has already been tournament-tested this season, winning the Canadian Championship and reaching the final of the Concacaf Champions Cup. Fatigue, injuries to center backs and the goofy turf in their home stadium might be the main obstacles in their way.

There’s good news and bad news for the Loons as the playoffs dawn. The good news is that if you were going to build a team to win in the playoffs, you’d probably try to make it look like Minnesota: solid defensively, with a veteran core, and laser-focused on taking advantage of small-margin plays like set pieces that tend to provide the deciding factor in playoff games. Key striker Kelvin Yeboah is on his way back from a hamstring injury, too.

The bad news is that, since getting bounced from Leagues Cup in August, Minnesota has been headed in one direction while the rest of the West has been headed in the other. According to the numbers from American Soccer Analysis, Vancouver, Seattle and Los Angeles FC have been three of the top four teams in the league in expected goal difference since the beginning of August. The Loons, meanwhile, have been the third-worst team in the league in the same rankings.

There’s no reseeding in the MLS playoffs. If the Loons get past Seattle, they would face the winner of the series between No. 1 seed San Diego and Portland or Real Salt Lake.