By Budd Bailey
It took Trent Kaese some time to find a scoring touch – six years, in fact. By then it was too late for him to build on his brief appearance in the NHL.
By most standards, Kaese was a rather average player in junior hockey. He had 20 goals and 18 assists in 67 games for the Lethbridge Broncos of the Western Hockey League. The right winger checked in at 6-feet and 210 pounds. The Sabres took him in the eighth round (No. 161 overall) of the 1985 Entry Draft. Two other future Sabres were taken in the draft that year – Randy Burridge and Tom Draper.
“Buffalo was very interested in me,” Kaese said on the Old Time Hockey UK podcast. “It seemed to work out. It was a great feeling. I still remember my first training camp. You’re going in with guys like Gil Perreault and all of these big-name NHL guys – all the Ramseys, Clark Gillies. Wonderful people, amazing hockey players.”
The road to Buffalo turned out to be a long one. He went back to Lethbridge in 1985-86, and had his best junior season with 65 points in 67 games. Kaese was traded to the Calgary Wranglers early in the 1986-87 season, and had 54 points there. The Sabres signed him to a contract, and he spent almost all of the season in Rochester, where he had 17 points in 37 games. Then it was on to Flint (Mich.) to join the Spirits in 1987-88, where he had 11 goals in 43 games. Kaese divided in the 1988-89 season between Rochester and Flint, with a combined 25 points in 54 games. But he didn’t get along with Americans coach John Van Boxmeer.
On March 25, 1989, the Sabres needed a forward – and Kaese was called up. The team was missing several forwards to injury, including Rick Vaive, Ray Sheppard and Kevin Maguire. The newcomer was given No. 39. Trent led the team in shots with five while playing on a line with Dave Andreychuk and Ken Priestlay, but none of them went in during a 4-1 loss to Quebec. Kaese did get to play against Joe Sakic; the two knew each other from their days in junior hockey.
“It was the one and only one (game) I had, but it was an absolutely terrific experience,” Kaese said to The Buffalo News. “I thought that a few more would come along as time went on, but I’m sure there’s lots of guys that didn’t even get that one chance. I’m just grateful that I did get at least one chance to play.”
The right winger sent to the Winston-Salem Thunderbirds of the ECHL, a step down from Rochester’s American Hockey League. Suddenly, Kaese became a scorer, with 56 goals and 51 assists in only 57 games.
It only got better when he joined the Peterborough Pirates of the British Hockey League in 1990 against admittedly lesser competition. In his first season there he had a remarkable 68 goals and 32 assists in 26 games. A season later he was averaging more than two points per game when the Columbus Chill of the ECHL called and brought back to America; Kaese had 50 points for the Ohio team.
The forward returned to the Pirates in 1992, and had 126 points in 36 games. A season later, he went absolutely berserk, with 119 goals and 106 assists in 53 games with the Milton Keynes Kings. Finally in 1994-95, Kaese finished his career with 57 goals and 60 assists in 39 games.
Years later, the Sabres decided to retire Dominik Hasek’s famous No. 39 – the same one worn by Kaese in his one game. “Everyone always bugs me about it, says they’re retiring my number,” a laughing Kaese told The News. “My friends say it’s going to have a hyphen in it, Hasek-Kaese maybe. I doubt it, but they find good humor in it.”
Kaese went back to his native British Columbia after retiring from hockey, and played a little amateur hockey. He also started to construct a golf facility. It went from a driving range and par-3 course to a full-blown 18-hole and a clubhouse.
(Follow Budd on X.com via @WDX2BB)
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