Chad Wiseman scored his second goal of the night 3:09 into overtime to give Hartford a wild 7-6 victory over Norfolk at the Civic Center on Wednesday night.
With the victory, the Wolf Pack improved to 11-1-0-1 in their last 13 games and moved to within four points of idle Portland in the race for first place in the Atlantic Division.
Wiseman skated up the right wing and gained the offensive zone, moved around fallen defenseman Michal Barinka and slid the puck past Corey Crawford to cap an evening that saw both teams cough up two-goal leads in regulation.
Wiseman and Nigel Dawes staked Hartford to a 2-0 lead just over eight minutes into the game, but by the end of the first period, Norfolk had claimed the lead on two goals by Danny Richmond and one by Quintin Laing.
Shawn Thornton‘s shorthanded marker with 11 seconds left in the second period gave the Admirals a 5-3 edge, but Hartford struck for three power-play goals early in the third to regain the advantage at 6-5.
Eric Meloche tied the game again on a great individual effort with 8:29 to go in regulation.
Alexandre Giroux had two goals and an assist and Jarkko Immonen recorded four assists for the Wolf Pack. Richmond (2g, 1a), Laing (1g, 2a) and Mark Cullen (3a) each picked up three points for the Admirals, who dropped to 3-2-1-1 through seven games of their 11-game road trip.
Elsewhere on Wednesday:
