Sid Hartman: Where will teams land after upheaval?

At a news conference in St. Paul on Tuesday, new Wild General Manager Chuck Fletcher announced the hiring of Todd Richards, a former Gophers star and San Jose Sharks assistant, as the successor to coach Jacques Lemaire.

The next day, across the river in Minneapolis, new Timberwolves General Manager David Kahn held a news conference at Target Center announcing that Kevin McHale won't return as the team's coach. Kahn said he will not start the process of hiring a new coach until after the June 25 draft.

The $64,000 question is, after these changes, and the new Wolves coach is hired, which franchise undergoing big changes will be the most successful five years from now?

Right now you have to give the Wild a big edge.

The hockey team hired a general manager who helped build the Stanley Cup champion Penguins and was regarded around the NHL as one of the best young executives ready to be a GM. And then Fletcher made a great move by hiring Richards as his coach. This was a very popular choice, although he is following a great one in Lemaire.

On the other hand, Kahn had not been active as an NBA executive since 2002 and has been in and out of the league. While Wolves owner Glen Taylor claims Kahn was his first choice, people close to the club say that more than two other candidates turned down the job.

And one of the first things Kahn did was to fire McHale, who did a great job winning 20 games last year with one of the youngest teams in the league using players who came from Boston in the trade for Kevin Garnett. In addition, McHale lost two of his stars because of knee injuries: Corey Brewer before the season started and the best player on the team, and one of the young stars in the game, Al Jefferson, injured his knee Feb. 8 at New Orleans.

On the other hand, after McHale notified all of the players with a text message that he had been fired, the players were really upset -- although they had no choice but to go along with Kahn's decision. The players loved McHale.

Kahn is going to regret his decision unless he brings in a miracle man.

Jefferson said: "I was more shocked, disappointed and hurt, but at the same time I understand that it's a business. I talked to David [Kahn] before the decision was made, and I knew he had a decision to make at the end of the day. And I knew, at the end of the day, he was going to do what was best for the team. That was the decision he came up with. I just have to accept it and move on from it."

McHale disappointed Kahn knew from the start that McHale wanted the job. But after two dinners and one meeting, Kahn gave McHale the news: "I'm going in a different direction."

Kahn knew from the start he wasn't going to hire McHale. Who is he kidding?

At no time during the get-togethers did Kahn talk contract, money, etc. So McHale should have known that he wasn't No. 1 on Kahn's list.

However, if you analyze the situation, it might have been hard for them to work together, because McHale had once held Kahn's job.

Asked if he would like to coach again if the opportunity presented itself, I was surprised when McHale responded, "We'll see if something comes up."

The Wolves gave away a lot of tickets last year to make Target Center look at least respectable attendance-wise. If Kahn picks the wrong coach, and this team falls on its face, he might be sorry he didn't keep McHale at least for one year and give him a chance to see what he could do with a healthy team with some key additions. There would have been a lot less pressure.

Harris improves No doubt the Twins would be better off had they not made the trade before the 2008 season that sent pitcher Matt Garza and shortstop Jason Bartlett to Tampa Bay and brought in Delmon Young, who has not produced as had been expected.

A year ago on June 18, Harris was hitting .236. Now, a year later, he is at .281.

And before earning the shortstop job, Harris had played 11 games at second base, 13 games at third and now he has played 27 games at shortstop and has made a total of two errors at that position compared with five at this time a year ago.

It looks like Harris has found his spot, which makes the deal look a bit better.

Jottings Joe Mauer went 4-for-4 Tuesday night to raise his batting average to .429 this season. That is the highest batting average by any player beyond the 150 at-bat mark in 15 years since Paul O'Neill of the Yankees was batting .431.

Going into Wednesday's game, Justin Morneau was fifth in the American League in batting average vs. left-handed pitching (.370). All other players in the top 10 are righthanded batters or switch hitters.

The Twins expect 50 former players to show up for a dinner the Saturday night before the last game at the Metrodome, and then appear in a ceremony after the Sunday game.

Gophers athletic director Joel Maturi underwent an operation on his left Achilles' tendon recently that will keep him from running for five months.

Former Gophers defenseman Alex Goligoski has agreed to a new three-year contract with the Pittsburgh Penguins. The contract is worth a reported $5.5 million. In 45 regular-season games with the Penguins, the Grand Rapids, Minn., native had six goals and 14 assists. In two playoff games, he had one assist.

Travis Busch, the former Gopher who had one year of competition left, received a waiver from the NCAA so he can transfer to Colorado State and play immediately.