Running on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, Hockey Talk examines 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. March 5 Washington Capitals? forward Alexander Ovechkin continues to amaze as he had a first period hat trick during the Capitals? 10-2 rout of the Boston Bruins on Monday. The goals were No. 50, 51, and 52 on the year for Ovechkin. He now has a 10 goal lead over No. 2, Atlanta?s Ilya Kovalchuk, and is cementing his spot as the best goal scorer in the world. After losing five straight games in the middle of February, the San Jose Sharks have won six in a row after a 6-4 win over Montreal on Monday. The streak includes five wins on the road and against such opponents as Detroit and Pittsburgh and home against Montreal. Prior to the game on Monday, the Sharks had allowed six goals in five games and have out shot their opponents by at least eight shots in five of the last six games. Forward Joe Thornton has had 10 points in these six games while Jonathan Cheechoo has four goals over this stretch. Sidney Crosby made his return to the ice on Tuesday by tallying an assist in the Penguins? 2-0 win over the Tampa Bay Lightning. He logged 22:07 of ice time and also had a +2 rating. However, the most important aspect about this game was a 35 save shutout by goalie Marc-Andre Fleury. In another comeback, Peter Forsberg made his season debut with the Colorado Avalache in a 2-1 home win over the Vancouver Canucks. He had 22 shifts and just under 20 minutes of ice time when he put three shots on net. March 3 The Vancouver Canucks have hit the skids with just over a month left in the regular season. They are winless in their last three games, including a 3-2 overtime loss at home against Columbus on Friday and a 4-1 loss at Chicago on Sunday. On Friday, they were out shot 33-23, and on Sunday it only got worse when they were out shot 28-10. For the most part, scoring has been their problem as they have scored three goals or less in 17 of their last 20 games. Goaltender Roberto Luongo hasn?t been as good this season as he was last so the Canucks will have to score more regularly to win games. Over these same 20 games, 10 of them have ended in overtime or a shootout with the Canucks having a 4-6 record. Most of those games saw the Canucks have third period leads, which they squandered. Yes, the Canucks still pick up a point in these games, but when you are trying to chase Minnesota in the division and hold onto the last spots for the playoffs, you need two points when you have a late lead. Not just one. The Canucks are currently at 74 points and in a tie for seventh in the Western Conference. Goaltender Cristobal Huet made a stellar debut with the Washington Capitals with a 4-0 shutout of the New Jersey Devils on Friday. He made 18 saves. Colorado is still waiting for Peter Forsberg to make his debut, but now they will be without forwards Ryan Smyth and Marek Svatos after both players were injured in Saturday?s game against the Los Angeles Kings. The Avalanche are eighth in the Western Conference, and there isn?t a hard charging team to pass them, but the playoffs aren?t a lock in Colorado. Now the signing of Forsberg will be even more important down the stretch. 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.