Flodell’s reassignment leaves questions for T-Birds’ future in net

The Thunderbirds announced Saturday that they had reassigned 17-year-old goaltender Logan Flodell to the Nipawin Hawks of the Saskatchewan Junior Hockey League. Flodell started one game for Seattle this season, a 3-1 loss to the Prince George Cougars where he stopped 37 of the 40 shots he faced.

The move leaves the Thunderbirds with the standard two goalies, Taran Kozun and Danny Mumaugh.

Since the T-Birds acquired Kozun at last season’s trade deadline, speculations were being made about how Seattle was going to approach its future in net. The initial thought may have been that Kozun was a half-season rental, but his outstanding play down the stretch and into the playoffs would make it difficult for the Thunderbirds to let him go.

Prior to Kozun’s arrival, Mumaugh appeared to have grabbed the top spot in net, outplaying Justin Myles, who was dealt to Kamloops as part of the Kozun deal. Kozun, 19 at the time, started his tenure with the T-Birds on fire, winning his first seven starts and posting shutouts in his first two games.

Waiting in the wings the entire time was Flodell, a former third round Bantam Draft pick who had impressed at both training camps he’d been a part of, leading most to christen him the team’s goaltender of the future.

This created a good problem for the Thunderbirds to have – they had Kozun, who was taking full advantage of his first full-time starting gig; Mumaugh, who appeared on the brink of becoming a number one netminder; and Flodell, a 16-year-old with a bright future.

During this year’s training camp and preseason, all three goalies were given an opportunity to earn themselves a spot on the team, and Flodell made the strongest case for himself, posting a 2.01 goals against average and .947 save percentage in his two starts, both losses.

While all three goaltenders were worthy of remaining on a WHL roster, it was a cloudy situation as each also had something almost entirely out of their control working against them.

Kozun, now 20, gave the Thunderbirds an abundance of overage players they’d need to move before the season began. Flodell was a rookie who hadn’t had a chance to prove himself yet and would have been playing an important role on a team hoping to go deep in the playoffs. Mumaugh is just one year older than Flodell at 18, which meant that if Flodell truly was the goalie of the future then Mumaugh might find it difficult to ever get a shot at the full-time starting job in Seattle that he had earned.

The team ultimately decided to keep Kozun as their starter, a choice that appears to have been the right one as he’s been tough in net all season and kept the Thunderbirds in every game in which he’s played. With Flodell’s reassignment, Mumaugh becomes the full-time backup and should get into at least 20 games this season.

The biggest question remains for the next season and beyond. Kozun will move on from Seattle after this season, which means Mumaugh and Flodell already have the two goaltending spots next year all but locked up.

Does that mean that Mumaugh, who will be 19, will be the No. 1 guy next season with Flodell, who will be 18 in 2015-16, getting regular starts as well? It’s also possible that the two could split time almost evenly, with each receiving 30-plus starts over the course of the season. Whatever the case ends up being, it seems the same questions will be present the year after, when Mumaugh is 20 and Flodell is 19. Will both be content splitting time for the majority of their WHL career?

This isn’t a bad position for the Thunderbirds to be in by any means. If both Mumaugh and Flodell prove that they can be No. 1 goaltenders in this league, and both appear to be on that track, then Seattle will have two very good netminders while many teams will be struggling to find one. It will certainly be a story to keep an eye on this season and beyond as Seattle looks to capitalize on one the league’s more talented young rosters.