The Wild have made remarkable progress in their effort to get back into the playoff race, two points away from the eighth and final Western Conference berth after winning 11 of 14 games.

Not that Freddy Gaudreau knows.

“I never really look at the standings,” the Wild forward said after an hour-long practice Thursday at TRIA Rink.

Never?

“No,” Gaudreau said. “Rarely. It will happen if I stumble on them, but I don’t really believe in it. My energy should not be about the standings, because every time I step on the ice, I want to win. The standings don’t matter; I want to win. That’s it.”

That’s kind of the company line for a Wild team playing its best hockey of the season, by a long shot, and eager to keep it going.

“We haven’t talked about the standings. We don’t,” coach John Hynes said. “We’re not posting them.”

But there’s no getting past the fact that for the first time all season, looking for the Wild in the Western Conference standings is a reasonable thing to do. Once 5-10-4 and seven points out of the playoff picture, they’re now 16-13-4 and within two points of the seventh and eighth spots, with games in hand, on No. 7 Arizona and No. 8 Nashville.

And while it’s still December, the Wild are now in four-point game territory with a conference-heavy schedule ahead, starting this weekend with consecutive, home-and-home games against the Winnipeg Jets — only their sixth and seventh games against Central Division rivals so far this season.

They play Saturday at 1 p.m. in Winnipeg, and Sunday at 1 p.m. at Xcel Energy Center — the first two of four meetings this season.

“It’s a back-to-back going into (a place) where you’re gonna have to be at your best to win,” Hynes said. “I think to have that competitiveness in the series is good for us — let’s see how we approach the series. But I also think there’s going to be different things in it that we’re going to be able to really grow from.”

Fifteen of the Wild’s first 21 games were against Eastern Conference teams, and only five of their first 33 games have been against Central Division opponents. The Jets, fifth in the West with 44 points, are 7-1-2 in their past 10 games; the Wild are 7-3-0.

Ryan Hartman learned this early Thursday morning.

“I was still up at 4:30 in the morning and couldn’t sleep, and just kept randomly going to my phone,” the Wild forward said. “I went on to check who we’re playing next. … And then I checked to see where they’re at.”

If it weren’t for a bout of insomnia — perhaps adrenaline from his performance in Wednesday night’s 6-3 victory over Detroit — Hartman likely wouldn’t have checked. In a league that gives a point to teams for overtime/shootout losses, making up lost ground is difficult, and the slow place can be discouraging.

“If you win eight games, you have to imagine the team ahead of you is going to win at least six,” Hartman said. “That’s only four points, and that’s with you winning eight games in a row. So, you’ve just got to do your job.

“You’ve got to win hockey games, and if you win, eventually other teams will go through some issues. You just try to keep winning.”

And it’s not as if the Wild have lost the plot; they just know that after the start they had this season, they just need wins.

“I’m aware of some things, of course,” he said. “But I don’t believe you should be focused on it. The focus is the process. If you get better every single day, then you leave nothing on the table. If you need extra motivation just because of the standings, I think you’re doing it wrong.”