| The Detroit News
Detroit — If Tampa Bay isn’t the best team in the division, Carolina might be.
And the Red Wings had a good look at the Hurricanes this past week.
Carolina looked awfully good Sunday, defeating the Red Wings 2-1, and moving into the Central Division lead.
Anthony Mantha scored with 9.4 seconds left, depriving former Plymouth Whalers goaltender Alex Nedeljkovic of the shutout.
Dougie Hamilton (shorthanded) and Nino Niederreiter scored for Carolina.
The Wings (8-17-4) lost their fifth game in the last six (1-4-1), with Nedeljkovic stopping 25 shots for the victory.
BOX SCORE: Carolina 2, Red Wings 1
Hamilton scored a shorthanded goal at 15:13, for the game’s first goal.
The Wings went scoreless on two power plays, and allowed quality scoring chances for the Hurricanes during those instances, forcing goaltender Jonathan Bernier to turn away several 2-on-1 rushes.
But Hamilton corralled a loose puck, broke free on the odd-man rush, and using his teammate as a decoy, glided into the slot near the hash marks and snapped a shot past Bernier.
Hamilton had a great, unexpected scoring chance earlier in the second period.
His dump in caromed out of the corner and slid directly through Bernier’s crease, before the Red Wings’ goalie backhanded the puck.
Carolina (20-6-1) got the insurance goal with Niederreiter’s 12th of the season.
Niederreiter and Sebastian Aho skated into the Wings zone on a 2-on-2 rush, Niederreiter took a drop pass from Aho, and using Filip Hronek as a screen, snapped a shot past Bernier just 1:37 into the third period.
Bernier stopped 30 shots, twice frustrating Jordan Martinook on Carolina 2-on-1 rushes in the second period.
But the Wings had precious little offense against a Hurricanes’ team defense that made it tough on the Wings to establish anything all day.
ted.kulfan@detroitnews.com
Twitter: @tkulfan