Wish former Wild head coach Todd Richards the best of luck.

He must step in for fired Blue Jackets coach Scott Arniel. Columbus is 2-8-1 since Dec. 15. They are 20 points out of the playoff picture with a 11-25-5 record overall.

Oh, and the team just lost top center Jeff Carter to a shoulder separation.

Richard steps up from his assistant coaching role with mixed feelings. “There's one emotion that's prevalent right now -- that's disappointment,” Richards told the Columbus Dispatch. “I've been the head guy getting fired and I've been underneath the head guy getting fired, and I feel more responsible as an assistant, because you're there to support the head coach. You feel afterward like there's more you could have done, more you should have done.

“There's ideas and thoughts (on why Arniel wasn't successful). There's thoughts that I have that I can't relay onto you. It's a situation we talked about and went over. I don't think you could think about or create a scenario (like this team has had) to get us to this point -- the things that went on, the way we lost games, the way it snowballed and manifested itself into bigger things.”

For more on the Columbus situation and other NHL news and notes, check out my story on STLToday.com.