Jason O. Watson-USA TODAY Sports
For the second night in a row, the Oklahoma City Barons and Charlotte Checkers will be battling each other on the ice, and after getting absolutely obliterated by the Checkers last night 7-0, the Barons will be looking to bounce back in a big way tonight. Now that a lot of their NHL talent has left for Edmonton, it is going to be up to the Barons’ actual roster to turn this ship around.
The Barons are connecting on over 25% of their power plays for the season (40 goals in 155 chances), while still giving up a significant number of goals on their penalty kill (only 124 kills in 159 chances). If they can somehow manage to continue scoring at such a gaudy rate as the season continues, they should be able to hang in there. But their penalty kill, which was dreadful the first five weeks or so of the season, and very good the next five before stagnating these past three weeks (they also stunk it up last night giving up two more goals), needs to improve dramatically. Killing fewer than 80% of your penalties is not going to get the job done. Yann Danis and Olivier Roy will also have to make enormous strides in net if the Barons hope to have any chance of making the playoffs, let alone doing anything once they get there.
The Barons have spent most of the year in third or fourth place in the AHL‘s South Division with a couple days in first or second sprinkled in for good measure, so something has to change if the Barons hope to continue to cling to a playoff spot or even move up in the standings. You can argue that many teams in the league will suffer as a result of some of their players getting called up to the NHL, but no squad will suffer these losses more than the Barons, so this is definitely the start of “put up or shut up” time for the Barons.
