THUNDERBIRDS

T-Birds acquire goaltender Luding from Silvertips

Nov 24, 2017, 1:53 PM

Prior to the first game of their double-header against the Victoria Royals on Friday, the T-Birds announced they had acquired 18-year-old goaltender Dorrin Luding from the Everett Silvertips in exchange for a ninth-round selection in the 2018 WHL Bantam Draft.

Luding, a native of Prince George, B.C., is expected to join the T-Birds in time for their games this weekend.

In 11 contests this season, Luding posted a 3-6-0-0 record with a .891 save percentage and 3.24 goals against average. He made one brief appearance in each of the past two seasons – one with the Saskatoon Blades in 2015-16, and one with the Silvertips last year – but did not register a decision in either game.

Luding was a fifth-round pick in the 2014 WHL Bantam Draft, 66th overall, after an impressive bantam career with the North Shore Winter Club in which he backstopped the team to a provincial title and the Western Canadian Bantam Championship.

Earlier this week, T-Birds goaltender Liam Hughes suffered a lower-body injury that is expected to keep him out of the lineup for a significant amount of time. Hughes was acquired to split time with Matt Berlin after Carl Stankowski suffered a lower-body injury of his own during the offseason. While Stankowski was recently upgraded from “month-to-month” to “week-to-week” on the T-Birds’ injury report, the timetable for his return is still unknown. Before the season started, general manager Russ Farwell said he expected Stankowski to return around the end of October.

On November 2, Seattle acquired a ninth-round selection in the 2018 draft from the ‘Tips in exchange for Luke Ormsby – a pick that appears to be headed back to its original owner. Seattle also sent a conditional ninth-round selection in the 2018 draft to Spokane in October 2016 for Berlin.

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