On the heels of a Blue Jackets coaching change that saw Todd Richards fired in favor of John Tortorella, Wild coach Mike Yeo said, "It's quite obvious what (Columbus') motivation is going to be" when the team comes to town Thursday night.
That's the conventional wisdom, anyway: fire the coach, light a fire under the players. But in practice, new management is seldom an instant salve.
We looked at every midseason NHL coaching change over the past decade. By our count, there have been 42, spread across 21 teams.
Columbus happens to be among the more trigger-happy franchises -- Richards is the team's third midyear casualty of the past decade.