Blazers' Kessy dealt on eve of Game 5

KALE KESSY

By GREGG DRINNAN
Daily News Sports Editor
The WHL trade deadline passed us by more than two months ago.
Still, right-winger Kale Kessy of the Kamloops Blazers found himself part of a trade on Friday.
The Phoenix Coyotes, who had selected Kessy in the fourth round of the 2011 NHL draft, dealt Kessy to the Edmonton Oilers for forward Tobias Rieder, who turned 20 on Jan. 10.
“I’m excited to go to Edmonton,” Kessy said last night, after enjoying dinner with his parents and a sister. “It’s a good opportunity for me. They have a lot of skilled and talented forwards.”
A representative of the Coyotes informed Kessy of the trade and he later spoke with Oilers general manager Steve Tambellini.
Rieder, from Landshut, Germany, plays for the OHL’s Kitchener Rangers. A fourth-round selection by the Oilers in the 2011 NHL draft, Rieder had 56 points, including 27 goals, in 52 regular-season games this season.
Kessy, a native of Shaunavon, Sask., played for three WHL teams this season, his fourth in the WHL. He started with the Medicine Hat Tigers, with whom he had played the previous three seasons, then was dealt to the Vancouver Giants.
The Blazers acquired Kessy, who has surpassed 100 penalty minutes in each of his WHL seasons, from the Giants for F Rob Trzonkowski, 18, and a 2015 fifth-round bantam draft pick.
Kessy, a 6-foot-3, 200-pounder, had 43 points in 60 regular-season games. With the Blazers, he put up 25 points, including 12 goals, in 31 games.
In four playoff games, he has six points, four of them goals. In fact, he scored the Blazers’ first three goals — it was his first WHL hat trick — in a 5-4 overtime victory over the host Victoria Royals on Thursday night. The victory left the Blazers with a 3-1 lead in the best-of-seven first-round series, with Game 5 at Interior Savings Centre tonight.
“It was a pretty exciting game to be a part of,” Kessy said. “It was nice to get the victory.”
Kessy, who turned 20 on Dec. 4, got his three goals in 7 minutes 34 seconds. The WHL’s playoff record is 2:39 and is held by Doug Saunders, who did it with the Kamloops Jr. Oilers in a 10-5 victory over the host Portland Winterhawks on April 14, 1984.

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