Beyond Lin

VANCOUVER--Tough to notice much of anything else with Jeremy Lin hysteria sweeping the world like sub-prime mortgage defaults.

But two terrific hockey stories worth noting slipped through the Lin-mania hurricane on the weekend.

First, the 20th consecutive home win by the Detroit Red Wings. Only two teams have ever done that before, and no one since the mid-1970s.

Detroit has a chance to set a new record Tuesday night against Dallas, and given how well this team is playing at the JLA, it would be hard to bet against them.

Johan Franzen's special touch on game-winning goals has helped power the Detroit home surge, as has stingy team defence. In those 20 wins, the Wings have allowed only 30 goals.

But really, this is about a tradition of excellence, an expression of superior organization and philosophy that has made the Wings the NHL standard to reach since the mid-1990s. Instead of wilting under the challenge of playing in the league's toughest division, strong NHL entries in Chicago, St. Louis and Nashville seem to have made the Wings even stronger.

Speaking of that division and the Blues, the second noteworthy story of the NHL from the weekend was St. Louis winger David Perron.

You remember Perron, right? This is the young forward concussed by a Joe Thornton elbow - Thornton received only a two-game suspension - who missed all of last season and the first part of this year with head injury woes.

Not surprisingly, Perron struggled when he did get back. But last week he scored six goals in four games, giving the powerful Blues another weapon as they take a run at the Red Wings atop the Western Conference.

More important, Perron's play is an inspiration to other NHLers and hockey players in general dealing with serious concussion problems. That's a story that reaches all levels of hockey.