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 29 The Trading Deadline is now past, and what you see from teams is what you are going to get. Make sure to check out the NHL page to see the breakdowns on all of the major deals. One of the biggest deals sent forward Brad Richards to the Dallas Stars, and what a debut he had on Thursday night! In a 7-4 home win over a quality Chicago Blackhawks, Richards had five assists and a +2 rating. Richards had 20 shifts of action and was seven for 13 on face-offs. The Ottawa Senators changed coaches on Wednesday but lost again by a score of 3-1 at Philadelphia on Thursday. Ottawa General Manager Bryan Murray took over the head coaching position again, the same position he held last year during the team?s run to the Stanley Cup Finals. The Senators finished February 4-8-1 and have been held to two goals or less eight times this month. Murray?s first challenge behind the bench is to work out the goaltending problems, which has been shoddy and divisive at points this year. Things don?t get any easier as the Senators welcome the Pittsburgh Penguins to town on Saturday. Peter Forsberg finally returned to the NHL by signing with the Colorado Avalanche on Wednesday. At 72 points, Colorado is currently tied with the Nashville Predators for eighth in the Western Conference. Forsberg will help the Avalanche with leadership and offensive playmaking, but something doesn?t add up. He stressed he wanted to go to a contender (which Colorado isn?t), and his wavering on coming back in recent weeks looks a lot like an injury to me. Maybe I?m wrong, but if I was an Avalanche fan, I wouldn?t get my hopes too high on Forsberg. February 25 Whatever hopes of the playoffs were left for the Philadelphia Flyers is out the window with Mike Richards? hamstring injury. He is expected to be out three weeks. The Flyers are at 67 points, which is one point behind the No. 8 seed Buffalo Sabres. They have also lost 10 in a row. Richards was leading the Flyers in goals (23), assists (43), and a team best +14 rating. In what amounted to a showcase weekend for Pittsburgh, the Penguins came up with just two points in close home losses to the Ottawa Senators and the San Jose Sharks. The Penguins played better against Ottawa on Saturday but lost 4-3 in overtime. Against San Jose, they were out shot by 16 in losing 2-1 in a shootout. On the contrary, the Calgary Flames used the weekend to pull ahead in the ever fluid Northwest Division. With wins at Phoenix and Dallas for momentum, the Flames beat Detroit 1-0 at home on Friday and then went to Minnesota on Sunday winning 2-1. Goaltender Miikka Kiprusoff has been playing fantastic, stopping 76 of 77 shots in the last two games alone and helping the Flames get hot despite being out shot by double digits in three of their last four wins. Anaheim Ducks' forward Teemu Selanne scored three goals and two assists in the Ducks? 6-3 win over the Chicago Blackhawks on Sunday. He has now scored at least one goal in three straight games for the Ducks, who have won nine of 10 games. The NHL Trading Deadline is Tuesday at 3:00 pm EST, and I don?t think there will be a major move. The league has too much parity for teams to give in, and the teams that should give in are asking steep prices for their stars. However, one team from each conference who needs to make a move in order to compete for the Stanley Cup are the San Jose Sharks and the Ottawa Senators. The Sharks need complementary scoring around Joe Thornton, and the Senators probably need goaltending, which they won?t be able to get, but they should still add some depth and veteran defensemen. February 22 The Buffalo Sabres took the last two nights as an opportunity to fatten up on weaker competition. They beat the Tampa Bay Lightning 4-3 on Monday and the Toronto Maple Leafs 5-1 on Tuesday. Since ending their 10 game winless streak, the Sabres are 11-4-1 and now sit in 7th in the Eastern Conference. A player who has really stepped up is left wing Thomas Vanek, who has scored 11 goals in the last eight games, including two hat tricks during this span. How good has Evgeni Malkin been? In the 15 games since Sidney Crosby went down with an ankle injury, Malkin has 12 goals and 18 assists while only being held pointless once. The Penguins are 9-4-2 in this stretch and are a point out of the Eastern Conference lead. Red Wings? fans can only hope all their worst luck happened in February and not in May. Just as they start to peek out of their mid-season swoon, all-world defenseman Nicklas Lidstrom is now out with a knee injury. You never like to have injuries, let alone to your one of your star players, but it isn?t the worst thing for Detroit. They have a good lead in the West, and this will give the Red Wings a chance to build on their second tier players. In a perfect world, Lindstrom will continue his all-star play, but a little rest for Lindstrom and time to build depth might be what Detroit needs. 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.