"There are times, when Todd Richards is back in Minnesota for a holiday or a family get-together, when his mind drifts to thoughts of what might have been.

Everybody in sports - certainly hockey fans in Minnesota - loves a homecoming story. Richards lived it the past two seasons, coaching the Wild 20 miles from where he grew up in Crystal and seven miles from where he starred as a Gophers defenseman. But as sweet as the local-boy-made-good narrative might be, there's a unique pain when it doesn't work out - because the next job means leaving home.

Richards, fired last April after two seasons as the Wild's coach, is learning to move on from those feelings. His parents still live in the Twin Cities, and in his first regular-season game as an assistant with the Columbus Blue Jackets, he was back in the Xcel Energy Center, facing the team that let him go. "