The 1977–78

Cleveland Barons The name Cleveland Barons has been used by three professional hockey teams and one junior team. *Cleveland Barons (NHL), the National Hockey League team that played between 1976 and 1978 *Cleveland Barons (1937–1973), the original American Hockey ...

season was the team's second and final

season A season is a division of the year based on changes in weather, ecology, and the number of daylight hours in a given region. On Earth, seasons are the result of the axial parallelism of Earth's tilted orbit around the Sun. In temperate and ...

in the NHL. The relocation to Cleveland did not cure the attendance problems that plagued the franchise from its inception in Oakland as the Seals in 1967. In June 1978, with both the Barons and the

Minnesota North Stars The Minnesota North Stars were a professional ice hockey team in the National Hockey League (NHL) for 26 seasons, from 1967 to 1993. The North Stars played their home games at the Met Center in Bloomington, Minnesota, and the team's colors for ...

on the verge of folding, the league approved an arrangement in which the two teams were permitted to merge under the ownership of Barons owner

George Gund III George Gund III (May 7, 1937 – January 15, 2013) was an American businessman and sports entrepreneur. Gund was born in Cleveland, Ohio, on May 7, 1937, to Jessica Roesler and George Gund II, a powerful banker in Cleveland. A high-school dro ...

. The merged franchise continued as the

, and assumed the Barons' old place in the

Adams Division The NHL's Adams Division was formed in 1974 as part of the Prince of Wales Conference. The division existed for 19 seasons until 1993. It was named in honour of Charles Francis Adams, the founder of the Boston Bruins. It is the forerunner of the ...

. Fifteen seasons later, the North Stars relocated to

Dallas Dallas () is the List of municipalities in Texas, third largest city in Texas and the largest city in the Dallas–Fort Worth metroplex, the List of metropolitan statistical areas, fourth-largest metropolitan area in the United States at 7.5 ...

and became the

Stars A star is an astronomical object comprising a luminous spheroid of plasma held together by its gravity. The nearest star to Earth is the Sun. Many other stars are visible to the naked eye at night, but their immense distances from Earth ma ...

, bringing the NHL to

Texas Texas (, ; Spanish: ''Texas'', ''Tejas'') is a state in the South Central region of the United States. At 268,596 square miles (695,662 km2), and with more than 29.1 million residents in 2020, it is the second-largest U.S. state by ...

for the first time. The NHL returned to the Buckeye State when the

Columbus Blue Jackets The Columbus Blue Jackets (often simply referred to as the Jackets) are a professional ice hockey team based in Columbus, Ohio. They compete in the National Hockey League (NHL) as a member of the Metropolitan Division in the Eastern Conference ...

began play in

2000 File:2000 Events Collage.png, From left, clockwise: Protests against Bush v. Gore after the 2000 United States presidential election; Heads of state meet for the Millennium Summit; The International Space Station in its infant form as seen from S ...

Offseason

Amateur draft

Cleveland's picks at the 1977 NHL amateur draft, which was held at the NHL's office in

Montreal Montreal ( ; officially Montréal, ) is the second-most populous city in Canada and most populous city in the Canadian province of Quebec. Founded in 1642 as '' Ville-Marie'', or "City of Mary", it is named after Mount Royal, the triple ...

on June 14, 1977.

Regular season

On December 11, 1977, Tom Bladon of the Philadelphia Flyers became the first defenceman in NHL history to score 8 points in one game. He scored four goals and four assists versus the Cleveland Barons. It was 25% of his point total for the entire season.

Final standings

Schedule and results

Regular season

;Detailed records

Player stats

Skaters

''Note: GP= Games played; G = Goals; A = Assists; Pts = Points; PIM = Penalties in minutes; +/- = Plus/minus'' ^†Denotes player spent time with another team before joining Barons. Stats reflect time with the Barons only. ^‡Traded mid-season.

Goaltenders

''Note: GP = Games played; TOI = Time on ice (minutes); W = Wins; L = Losses; T = Ties; GA = Goals against; SO = Shutouts; GAA = Goals against average''

Transactions

The Barons were involved in the following transactions during the 1977–78 season:

Trades

Additions and subtractions

Playoffs

The Barons did not qualify for the playoffs.

References

External links

Barons on Hockey Database

{{DEFAULTSORT:1977-78 Cleveland Barons season Cleve Cleve Cleveland Barons (NHL)

Cleveland Cleveland ( ), officially the City of Cleveland, is a city in the U.S. state of Ohio and the county seat of Cuyahoga County. Located in the northeastern part of the state, it is situated along the southern shore of Lake Erie, across the U.S. ...