Welcome to the newest addition to the hockey coverage here at RealGM with our new hockey blog called Hockey Talk. Running on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, Hockey Talk will examine player and team trends as well as take a more in-depth look at the game. This is an interactive project so feel free to email your opinions to Douglas.Benton@RealGM.com and your thoughts may just appear in this space. February 20 The New York Rangers lost a 6-5 shootout heartbreaker against the Montreal Canadiens on Tuesday night. The game was in Montreal (a superior team), and the Rangers still left town with a point, but the fact they had a 5-0 lead and ended up losing a point to Montreal is inexcusable. This can?t happen to a team fighting for the playoffs or one that has a goaltender of Lundqvist?s talents in net. In New Jersey, the Devils are coming off a really solid effort in their 5-1 win over the Carolina Hurricanes on Monday. The Devils have now won four out of five games and have received points in eight of nine games. They currently sit 20th in goals scored and 2nd in goals allowed. Wayne Gretzky has the Phoenix Coyotes in the playoff hunt, only two points back of the Calgary Flames. However, after losing to Calgary 4-1 on Tuesday, the Coyotes have now lost seven of their last 11 games and have been out shot in eight of those games. I see this team as a tease and don?t take them seriously for the playoffs. Their offense is middle of the road, and Ilya Bryzgalov is at least a year away from being a cornerstone type goaltender. February 18 With a 1-0 loss at Dallas on Sunday, the Detroit Red Wings have lost six in a row, and the schedule doesn?t get much easier with this road trip continuing to Colorado and then into western Canada. The numbers show their problems as the Red Wings haven?t scored more than three goals in this stretch and have only scored three goals once. On the other end, the Red Wings have given up five goals twice. The Red Wings are battling injuries with defensemen Brian Rafalski and goaltender Dominik Hasek, and every team is bound for a slump at some point in the year. There is some room for concern since the Red Wings haven?t scored more than three goals in a game since January 19. However, Detroit fans shouldn?t be too worried because with their star power and solid yet not firm goaltending, the Red Wings are still a favorite to come out of the Western Conference. A potential challenger could be the Dallas Stars, who capped off this weekend with a win at Anaheim and a home win against Detroit. The Stars now sit at 79 points and have won nine out of ten games with goaltender Marty Turco as the main reason. Turco has only given up more than three goals once in the last month and has four games when he gave up one goal or less. Even though they are eighth in goals scored, I question if the Stars have enough playmakers behind Mike Ribeiro, and it could be their playoff downfall.