The Winnipeg Jets and Dallas Stars are set to do battle for the Central Division crown in the second round of the Stanley Cup Playoffs.

The puck will be dropped in Game 1 from Canada Life Centre on Wednesday night at 8:50 PM central time in the late-night time slot, following the second contest between Toronto and Florida. 

Call it unlikely if you must, but the matchup between the Jets and Stars was always going to happen. 

But it sure seemed improbable at times - as lates as the dying seconds of regulation in the final contest of the first round. 

Believe it or not, both the Jets and Stars found themselves trailing by two goals in the third periods of the final game of their respective first round matchup.

For Dallas, it was the Mikko Rantanen show. The star offensive player was traded from Colorado to Carolina earlier in the season, where he and the Hurricanes were unable to sort out a long-term solution. Rantanen was then moved to Dallas at the trade deadline for a boatload of draft picks and prospects. 

He signed a rich deal with the Stars, and the rest, as they say, has been history for Rantanen in Dallas.  

Facing off against his former longtime Avalanche teammates, Rantanen took over the series in Game 7, picking up four points in the third period - including a hat trick - as the Stars clawed back from a 2-0 deficit, to win the game and series in incredible fashion. 

Dallas will now face Winnipeg, which may have had an even greater comeback story just 24 hours later. 

Also trailing by two goals in the third period, the Jets needed the entire 60-minute game to pull even with St. Louis, which had jumped out to a 2-0 lead early in the first period.

It was Cole Perfetti who cut the Blues' lead to one goal in the second period, but with 34 seconds remaining, Radek Faksa seemingly put things out of reach at 3-1 for St. Louis through 40 minutes of play.

Winnipeg pulled Connor Hellebuyck for the extra attacker with 3:14 to play. With just under two minutes left, Vladislav Namestnikov bounced a puck off a Blues defender and past Jordan Binnington, cutting the lead to 3-2.

But thanks to a number of whiffs on final shift of the game from Nikolaj Ehlers, it appeared as though the Presidents' Trophy-winning Jets' season had come to a close. 

However, making up for his blunder at the point, Ehlers received a pass from captain Adam Lowry, and he smartly faked a shot, one-timing the puck cross-ice to Kyle Connor in the dying seconds. The Jets' star goal scorer fired the puck towards the net, where Perfetti reached out his stick and redirected the puck top shelf past Binnington, sending Canada Life Centre, Winnipeg, and most of North America into a frenetic state of disbelief, shock, excitement and elation.

Perfetti and the Jets had tied the game with 1.6 seconds left on the jumbotron, sending it to overtime. 

The first period of extra hockey did not result in a goal. The teams almost made it through the second such frame as well, but with 3:50 left in the second overtime period, captain Adam Lowry redirected a Neal Pionk point shot, capping the comeback, finishing off the Blues, and sending the Jets to the second round all at once.

Incredibly, Winnipeg played the majority of the five-period game down its best defenceman, as Josh Morrissey left the game early in the first period with an injury and did not return. 

He joined first-line centre Mark Scheifele on the sidelines, watching his mates revel in the glory of the overtime victory. The additions of Gabe Vilardi and Nikolaj Ehlers - who both considerable time recovering from injuries of their own - surely helped the Jets in the later stages of Sunday's showdown.

Similarly, Dallas was without its best defenceman, Miro Heiskanen, and its star forward Jason Robertson for the entirety of the first round, as both players continued working their respective ways back from injuries suffered in the regular season. 

No, Dallas did not have to physically play shorthanded twice like the Jets did following the in-game injuries suffered by Scheifele and Morrissey, but the Stars managed alright without their stud blueliner and offensive wizard. 

Neither team has committed to answering on the availability of their injured stars, but it is expected that Dallas will soon have the services of one, if not both players within the round. 

Winnipeg's diagnoses are even cloudier, as both Scheifele and Morrissey's injuries have not been officially listed - with speculation stemming from upper-body concerns for both players. 

Both clubs have seen admirable fill-in performances on the back-end and up-front, but gaining one or both of their fallen mates would certainly go a long way in what should be another exhilarating Central Division playoff round. 

The puck is set to drop from Canada Life Centre at 8:50 PM central time  in Game 1 on Wednesday night. Game 2 will also be played from downtown Winnipeg on Friday, before the series shifts to Texas for games three and four.