OKLAHOMA CITY -- The Oklahoma City Barons opened the 2013-14 season Friday evening with a 3-2 loss to the Charlotte Checkers at the Cox Convention Center.

Brody Sutter scored the game-winning goal at the 14:44 mark of third period to give the Checkers the win.

Justin Peters earned the win in net for the Checkers, while Richard Bachman picked up the loss for the Barons (0-1-0-0). 

Charlotte took an early lead with Chris Terry’s goal just 49 seconds into the game. Bachman recorded had two great saves against Nicolas Blanchard and Matt Marquardt, but Mark Flood put the Checkers up 2-0 at 11:51.

The Checkers led the Barons in shots 15-6 at the first intermission.

It just wasn’t in the cards for the Edmonton Oilers, the NHL parent club of the OKC Barons, when they came to town for a preseason game against the Dallas Stars Friday night.

The fans were out in waves, including a large number of Stars fans.

The game was off to a quick start when former OKC Baron Arcabello excited the crowd with a near miss on a breakaway mid-way through the first.

Trailing the Grand Rapids Griffins 3-2 in the series after two consecutive shutout losses, and with their season slipping away, the Oklahoma City Barons responded, scoring three third-period goals to knock off the Griffins 4-3 and force a Game 7.

That game was Wednesday night in Grand Rapids, but had not started at press time. Check our Twitter, @EastWordSports or eastwordnews.com’s scrolling ticker for the result.

The Oklahoma City Barons advanced to the Western Conference Finals in style with their 5-1 win over the Texas Stars.  The Barons faced their neighbors to the south in a best of 7 series this past week. 

Teemu Hartikainen started the Barons offensive when he put a shot on Star’s Goalie Christopher Nilstorp, who caught a piece of the puck but was unable to keep it from sneaking its way into the goal.  Baron’s goalie Yann Danis had a series of stunning saves in the closeout win allowing just one power play shot to slip by him into the net.  He has played every minute of the 2013 Calder Cup Playoffs, performing quite well with 317 saves, a 93.5 save percentage.