State of the Barons: July 4th

After the 1st weekend of free agency, the Barons have suffered some big losses. In addition to Brad Moran leaving for Sweden, we learned that Colin McDonald signed with Pittsburgh and Alexandre Giroux signed with Columbus, leaving the Barons without their top line and top three scorers from last season.

That's a huge chunk of the offense from last season, but how much exactly?

Obviously, that's a big hole to fill and unfortunately, the Oilers have yet to sign anybody that can really fill that hole. Jeff Taffe and Brett Sterling, who I would have put in that category, were both signed by Minnesota and St. Louis respectively. Josh Green showed he can score last season, but not those numbers. There's a slight possibility that Linus Omark starts out here next season, but without Liam Reddox, it'll be interesting to see if he can keep his pace where it was. Anton Lander is another possibility, but it still only fills some and not all of the gap.

One free agent that can help that is still on the board, Darren Haydar. Haydar scored 27 goals and 47 assists in 77 games for the Chicago Wolves last season. He's never had a season where he scored less than 50 points in the AHL, and he's another strong veteran that the Oilers have seemed to be looking for to fill out the roster for the Barons.

Oh, and we're still looking for a goalie.

-Written by Eric Rodgers-