With the Pittsburgh Penguins entering the offseason after a brief return to the postseason, TribLive will offer Penguins A to Z, a player-by-player look at all 53 individuals signed to an NHL contract — including those whose deals do not begin until future seasons — with the organization.

Starting with veteran Noel Acciari and going on through to prospect Bill Zonnon, every player will be profiled in alphabetical order.

This series is scheduled to be published every day until June 24, two days before the start of the NHL Draft. In the event of a transaction, that schedule will be altered as necessary.

(Note: All contract information courtesy of Puckpedia.)

Ben Kindel

Position: Center

Shoots: Right

Age: 19

Height: 5-foot-11

Weight: 182 pounds

2025-26 NHL regular season statistics: 77 games, 35 points (17 goals, 18 assists), 15:04 of average ice time per contest

2025-26 NHL regular season statistics: Six games, zero points (zero goals, zero assists), 13:07 of average ice time per contest

Contract: In the first year of a three-year entry-level contract with a salary cap hit of $986,250. Pending restricted free agent in 2030

Acquired: First-round draft pick (No. 11 overall), June 27, 2025

This season: Ben Kindel was a surprise almost from the moment he joined the Penguins.

Actually, he was literally a surprise the exact moment the Penguins drafted him.

Most mock drafts suggested Kindel would not be selected until the later stages of the first round so when the Penguins called his name as the 11th overall pick, it raised some eyebrows.

Eleven months later, he has silenced any doubters by having one of the best seasons an 18-year-old has ever enjoyed for the Penguins.

During the preseason, Penguins coaches gave Kindel an extensive look as he appeared in six of a possible seven games and produced three points (one goal, two assists).

That audition was enough for management to keep Kindel on the NHL roster to open the season. Lining up as the third-line center to start the campaign, Kindel scored two goals in his first nine games, including his first career goal during a 6-1 home loss to the New York Rangers on Oct. 11.

That, coupled with a strong by-the-book defensive approach, convinced management to keep Kindel, who was eligible to return to the junior ranks, past the nine-game barrier that formally tolled the first year of his entry-level contract.

Aside from a handful of healthy scratches in the first weeks of the season that were described as part of a “development plan,” Kindel largely remained in the lineup as the third-line center for the vast majority of 2025-26.

A four-game apprenticeship on the right wing of the top line in the early stages of November, with veteran forward Rickard Rakell sidelined by a hand injury, was most notable of the limited aberrations from that deployment.

Kindel went through the typical ups and downs an 18-year-old in his first NHL season goes through. Perhaps the low point of his freshman campaign was a 19-game goalless streak between Dec. 16 and Jan. 22.

That challenging stretch came to a halt in an emphatic fashion during a 3-2 road victory against the Vancouver Canucks on Jan. 25 when the Coquitlam, British Columbia native scored two goals, including the winning tally.

Perhaps Kindel’s most notable performance came in the Penguins’ final game before the Olympics break on Feb. 5. With three of the team’s regular forwards sidelined for various reasons, Kindel scored two goals, including the game-winner and an empty netter that helped secure a 5-2 road win against the surging Buffalo Sabres.

After sitting out two of the final three games of the regular season to rest up, Kindel opened his first career postseason in his typical station as the third-line center.

But the rigors of his first professional season appeared to dull Kindel’s game as he was held without a point in a first-round loss to the Philadelphia Flyers and was often on the wrong end of the Flyers’ physical approach.

Featured Local Businesses

More local businesses

The future: The mind wonders what Kindel, who turned 19 on April 19, can do for an encore in 2026-27. Presumably, with a full season under his belt and a fairly lengthy offseason to recover, Kindel will be all the more prepared to deal with the day-to-day encumbrances of NHL life.

Kindel’s offers a heady, fundamentally sound game and rarely makes mental mistakes. His faux pas were largely exclusive to his limited physical tools as a teenager. That will improve in due time.

How the Penguins opt to deploy Kindel next season remains to be seen. It is May, after all. But he appears to be more than capable of graduating to the second line, the top power-play unit or one of the penalty killing outfits.

Kindel is no longer a surprise after a strong rookie season.