Ben Kindel is spending the offseason back home in Vancouver, getting ready for the 2026-27 season and looking like a player who has kept his game on track. His practice group drew unwanted attention when Conor Bedard was hurt and later had shoulder surgery that will keep him out to start the season, but Kindel has avoided that kind of setback.
The more interesting question for Pittsburgh is where Kindel fits once camp opens. The Penguins’ center picture already looks unsettled, and Evgeni Malkin’s role appears to be shifting away from the middle.
Malkin was already sliding off being a true center before he was injured last season, with his faceoffs per month dropping from 102 in October to 90 in November. After he came back by January, he was almost entirely on the wing.
With Malkin turning 40 soon and Kyle Dubas making it clear that Malkin’s role needs to come with a willingness to move on from the past, it seems more and more likely that his days as a full-time center are done.
That leaves the Penguins trying to piece together the middle of the lineup behind Sidney Crosby and ahead of Blake Lizotte. Tommy Novak has center roots from his younger days, though he has become more of a winger in the NHL.
Rickard Rakell is in that same category, only more so. For now, those names, along with Kindel, are the main options Pittsburgh has to work with.
The labels of “second line” and “third line” may not matter much anyway in Dan Muse’s setup. Last season, as an 18-year-old, Kindel averaged 12:36 in even-strength ice time, which ranked eighth among regular Penguin forwards.
Novak was sixth at 13:06, while Egor Chinakhov was fifth at 13:36. Justin Brazeau sat ninth at 11:37 per game, just ahead of the fourth-line core of Lizotte at 11:20 and Connor Dewar at 11:13.
Unless there’s a major change in how the Penguins want to use their forwards, Kindel should land somewhere in that 12-to-14-minute range. The bigger swing is who he plays with.
Last season, Kindel’s most common 5-on-5 forward partners were Brazeau, Anthony Mantha, Ville Koivunen, Rutger McGroarty and Novak. Those were the only players to spend more than 100 minutes with him, which points more toward a third-line type of workload and supporting cast.
That could look very different this season. Kindel might be asked to center a more offensively loaded group with Chinakhov, Malkin, Andrei Kuzmenko and Rakell, a setup that would feel more like a second line even if the ice time stays in the same neighborhood. The minutes may not change much, but the talent around him certainly could.
If not, he could also end up with a more modest group featuring Brazeau, Novak, Nick Robertson, Elmer Soderblom and Hendrix Lapierre. In reality, it may be a little of both as the Penguins sort through combinations and see what works.
Those choices will start to come into focus in September at training camp, and they could have a major impact on how Pittsburgh’s lineup takes shape. For now, Kindel’s job is simple: keep sharpening his game and build on a rookie season that already went well.
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For Pittsburgh, the intrigue goes beyond the player himself. Robertsons younger brother, Nick, is already in the organization, which only adds to the speculation around a possible fit. Even with that connection, the path ahead is still unsettled, and Robertson could just as easily remain in Dallas or end up elsewhere if the talks continue to drag. [Read more 🡒]