With clammy hands and a sweaty brow, Todd Richards will walk into Xcel Energy Center on Saturday for the first time since being fired in April as the Wild's coach.
He can't wait to walk out -- hopefully with a Columbus Blue Jackets victory in tow.
"It's almost like a girlfriend you broke up with," said Richards, now a Blue Jackets assistant. "The first time you see her, it's a little bit awkward, you don't know what to say, and there's probably a little bitterness and anger. But once you get past the first time, then you just move on."
Richards, a former Gopher, said he'll always return to his native Minnesota, where his family still lives.
"We are Ohioans, but we aren't Buckeyes," Richards quipped.
Richards has adjusted to life as an assistant, telling his wife during a day off last week: "It's actually a day off. I turned the mind off."
Richards missed the playoffs two years in a row with the Wild, but he said he learned a couple of valuable lessons. However, he wouldn't talk specifics.
"I think I made a couple decisions at the beginning that I shouldn't have, and a couple little things both years led to it unraveling," Richards said. "I won't make those mistakes again, but I'm a firm believer that if I have a problem, I'll do it face to face, man to man, and not go through the papers.
