As the season winds down, thoughts are turning to next year. In the Blue Jackets case, thoughts have been turned there since November. But now it is getting time to be for real. The start of reality is almost here. For most fans, they want to get on with players. Who do we let go? Who do we get? What can we get in a goalie? For others it’s about Scott Howson and to a little lesser degree, M Priest.
First a quick reality check. Player movement is pretty much not going to happen until after the season ends. [ that is the end of the playoffs folks] But the other moves can happen anytime. I am not going to get into the Scott Howson/M Priest arguments. Both sides can make great cases and show many examples…………not going there.
But the coach and staff are also likely to be resolved at any time. There is a school of thought that if there is a GM change, the new GM should hire a coach that is on the same page as he is. This is also part of not going there. For our purpose now, let’s just look at what we have.
Todd Richards is the temporary or interim coach of the Blue Jackets. His position before the Jackets hired him was coach of the Minnesota Wild. What else don’t we know as common knowledge. Todd Richards
Todd Richards
Defense
Born Oct 20 1966 — Crystal, MN
Height 6.00 — Weight 194 — Shoots R
Selected by Montreal Canadiens round 2 #33 overall 1985 NHL Entry Draft
| Regular Season | Playoffs | ||||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Season | Team | Lge | GP | G | A | Pts | PIM | +/- | GP | G | A | Pts | PIM |
| 1985-86 | U. of Minnesota | WCHA | 38 | 6 | 23 | 29 | 38 | ||||||
| 1986-87 | U. of Minnesota | WCHA | 49 | 8 | 43 | 51 | 70 | ||||||
| 1987-88 | U. of Minnesota | WCHA | 34 | 10 | 30 | 40 | 26 | ||||||
| 1987-88 | U.S. National Team | Intl | Statistics Unavailable | ||||||||||
| 1988-89 | U. of Minnesota | WCHA | 46 | 6 | 32 | 38 | 60 | ||||||
| 1989-90 | Sherbrooke Canadiens | AHL | 71 | 6 | 18 | 24 | 73 | 5 | 1 | 2 | 3 | 6 | |
| 1990-91 | Fredericton Canadiens | AHL | 3 | 0 | 1 | 1 | 2 | — | — | — | — | — | |
| 1990-91 | Springfield Indians | AHL | 71 | 10 | 41 | 51 | 62 | 14 | 2 | 8 | 10 | 2 | |
| 1990-91 | Hartford Whalers | NHL | 2 | 0 | 4 | 4 | 2 | -4 | 6 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 2 |
| 1991-92 | Springfield Indians | AHL | 43 | 6 | 23 | 29 | 33 | -2 | 8 | 0 | 3 | 3 | 2 |
| 1991-92 | Hartford Whalers | NHL | 6 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 2 | -2 | 5 | 0 | 3 | 3 | 4 |
| 1992-93 | Springfield Indians | AHL | 78 | 13 | 42 | 55 | 53 | -10 | 9 | 1 | 5 | 6 | 2 |
| 1993-94 | Las Vegas Thunder | IHL | 80 | 11 | 35 | 46 | 122 | 47 | 5 | 1 | 4 | 5 | 18 |
| 1994-95 | Las Vegas Thunder | IHL | 80 | 12 | 49 | 61 | 130 | 49 | 9 | 1 | 2 | 3 | 6 |
| 1995-96 | Orlando Solar Bears | IHL | 81 | 19 | 54 | 73 | 59 | 15 | 23 | 4 | 9 | 13 | 8 |
| 1996-97 | Orlando Solar Bears | IHL | 82 | 9 | 36 | 45 | 134 | 9 | 10 | 0 | 1 | 1 | 4 |
| 1997-98 | Orlando Solar Bears | IHL | 75 | 6 | 37 | 43 | 68 | 20 | 17 | 3 | 8 | 11 | 13 |
| 1998-99 | Orlando Solar Bears | IHL | 67 | 11 | 26 | 37 | 61 | 13 | 16 | 3 | 7 | 10 | 14 |
| 1999-00 | Orlando Solar Bears | IHL | 43 | 7 | 18 | 25 | 26 | 11 | 6 | 0 | 5 | 5 | 4 |
| 2000-01 | Orlando Solar Bears | IHL | 75 | 9 | 28 | 37 | 60 | -3 | 16 | 2 | 11 | 13 | 8 |
| 2001-02 | Geneve Servette | Swiss-B | 34 | 11 | 26 | 37 | 18 | ||||||
| NHL Totals | 8 | 0 | 4 | 4 | 4 | 11 | 0 | 3 | 3 | 6 |
Embed Todd Richards stats! | View as text
| Season | Team | Lge | Type | GP | W | L | T | OTL | Pct | Result |
| 2002-03 | Milwaukee Admirals | AHL | Assistant | |||||||
| 2003-04 | Milwaukee Admirals | AHL | Assistant | |||||||
| 2004-05 | Milwaukee Admirals | AHL | Assistant | |||||||
| 2005-06 | Milwaukee Admirals | AHL | Assistant | |||||||
| 2006-07 | Wilkes-Barre/Scranton Penguins | AHL | Head | 80 | 51 | 23 | 0 | 6 | 0.675 | Lost in round 2 |
| 2007-08 | Wilkes-Barre/Scranton Penguins | AHL | Head | 80 | 47 | 26 | 0 | 7 | 0.631 | Lost in Finals |
| 2008-09 | San Jose Sharks | NHL | Assistant | |||||||
| 2009-10 | Minnesota Wild | NHL | Head | 82 | 38 | 36 | 0 | 8 | 0.512 | Out of Playoffs |
| 2010-11 | Minnesota Wild | NHL | Head | 82 | 39 | 35 | 0 | 8 | 0.524 | Out of Playoffs |
| 2011-12 | Columbus Blue Jackets | NHL | Assistant | |||||||
| 2011-12 | Columbus Blue Jackets | NHL | Head‡ |
‡ Midseason replacement
After all the statistical listing, let me point out that Todd Richards has a total of 8 games of NHL playing experience. But he has a ton of hockey games played in the minor leagues. Now, this is not a bad thing, it’s just information. It is a fact that most successful coaches are not star players. They learned their knowledge in the schools of hard knocks. Like all past experience, it depends on what you do with the experience. What you learn from it and what/how you use it.
Richards has a reputation as being a player’s coach. I’m not sure what that means, to me it would mean that he treats players as individuals and has some compassion for their needs and wants. Most of us would agree this is not bad, unless the compassion allows too much latitude from the standpoint of accomplishing what the team needs. Zillions of management books have been written on this fine line and controlling without choking individuality.
It’s interesting that both Todd Richards and Claude Noel, as interim managers at the ends of unsuccessful seasons have stressed having fun and playing loose and both have been more successful than the prior coach. But in Richards case, his performance is more than a little hard to evaluate. The major reason for this is he has a team that is hard to describe, it is a group of players that is filled with AHLers, has changed due to injury on almost a daily basis, and the Captain, Rick Nash has requested a trade.
For us fans, it can be simple it’s a matter of W’s, did we or didn’t we. My personal opinion is that Todd Richards has shown a calmness and survived the adversities of lack of NHL players. When Richards was hired as an assistant coach the thought was he would improve the Jackets power play. Again tough to evaluate as the players and the changes in players cloud that issue and it’s results. The last 3 wins have been against playoff teams. All in all, I think a pretty good job. In my opinion, we may be down to “better the devil you know, than the devil you don’t know”. Almost every fan will have an opinion on that, but none is in a position where his livelihood depends on his answer to the coaching question. Despite all the passion we as fans have, we tend to overlook this basic fact.
Then again, we need to go back to the Scott Howson issue. If Howson goes, probably Todd Richards should go and a complete change is completed. Now we also must answer another question that has not been asked, Does Todd Richards want to stay and be the Blue Jackets head coach?” Sorry I can only assume that he does.
Therefore my bottom line is this, If Howson stays, Richards should stay, if Howson goes, Richards should go.
The final issue in this coaching staff question are the assistant coaches. Richards inherited his assistant coaches from Scott Arneil. If he stays would he keep the same assistants? I’ll try to bring some information to light on that issue in future posts.
WE WANT THE CUP