The Admirals kick off the 2008 Calder Cup Playoffs tonight against arch-rival the Chicago Wolves at the Allstate Arena in Rosemont, Ill.

After dropping two of three against the Houston Aeros, Milwaukee finished the season fourth in the North Division with 95 points. Chicago, meanwhile, won the North Division championship with 111 points.

Admirals goaltender Pekka Rinne led the American Hockey League in victories this season with 36 (a mark that also tied the franchise record). He was also tops in minutes and shots faced.

As a rookie in 2006, Rinne was between the pipes when the Admirals advanced to the Calder Cup Finals before losing in six games to Hershey. Despite playing more than a majority of the team's minutes in goal this season, Rinne got some much-needed rest during a late-season call-up to NHL parent club Nashville.

The Admirals' shooters will face a goalie of similar caliber in the Wolves' Ondrej Pavelec. Pavelec finished second to Rinne with 33 victories. The Czech Republic native allowed 2.77 goals per game and stopped 91 percent of the shots he faced.

Milwaukee was the second-least penalized team in the AHL this season, which will be beneficial as Chicago owns the league's third-best power-play conversion rate at 20.8 percent (107 goals in 514 tries.). Both teams notched a penalty-kill rate of 84 percent.

The two teams met 10 times during the regular season, splitting the series evenly at 4-4-2, with two overtimes. The series is a rematch from a year ago, when the Wolves opened their post-season with a 4-0 sweep of Milwaukee.

The best of seven North Division Semifinals resume Friday night with game two, also played at the Allstate Arena. The series moves to Milwaukee for games three and four, set for 5 p.m. Sunday and 7 p.m. Wednesday, respectively.