When you buy a ticket for a 60-minute Wild game these days, you’re apt to get a little bit more than you purchased. After a 4-3 overtime loss to the Panthers on Saturday, the Wild have now gone beyond regulation in six of their past 11 games. A seventh game – a 4-3 loss in Montreal last week – was decided when the Canadiens scored with just 15 seconds left in regulation.

This Minnesota hockey is not for the faint of heart lately. The Wild coach sees a league where there is perhaps more competition on a nightly basis than we have seen traditionally.

“There’s a ton of parity. When you look at, you know, anyone can beat anyone on any given night, regardless of the record or where they are in the standings,” John Hynes said following the team’s Monday practice. “Lots of tight games and I would imagine it’s going to be that way down the stretch.”

While the ending is always sudden and usually exciting for fans, the players feel the tension ramp up when the horn blows to end the third period with nothing decided.

“Every save in OT, you know is probably going to be a grade A chance, so it’s just except the worst and be ready for everything,” said goalie Filip Gustavsson, who has seen the notion of an “easy” opponent disappear. “I asked (Marc-Andre) Fleury about this and he said before it used to be some teams you knew you were going to win against every time. This year it doesn’t feel like anything is like that. It just shows anyone can win against anyone on any given night.”

And while some tired players in the postgame have said at least they are assured a point from getting past 60 minutes, Hynes stressed that nobody is happy with just making it to overtime, and that second point is vitally important when the standings are so tight.

“By no means are we trying to get games to overtime. We’re trying to win in 60 minutes and we’re trying to get two points every night,” he said. “It’s a lot of tight hockey and we’ve been in a lot of those games, but it’s not trying to just get a point out of those games.”

In 53 games this season, the Wild have gone past regulation 20 times. They have 10 wins and 10 losses in either overtime or a shootout.

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