- Ben Kindel left Pittsburgh’s preseason opener against Buffalo after one period with a lower-body injury
- The Penguins announced he would not return, with no word yet on the severity
- Read below for Kindel’s night, the Blake Lizotte ripple effect and how the Penguins finished off a 4-1 win
Ben Kindel’s first night of the preseason lasted one period.
Pittsburgh announced Monday that Kindel would not return to the exhibition opener against Buffalo because of a lower-body injury. He had been one of Pittsburgh’s most noticeable players through 20 minutes at PPG Paints Arena.
Nothing on the shift sheet screams disaster. Kindel drove hard into the net earlier in the frame and got up slowly, then took a soft shot off the leg while blocking late in the period. He finished the 20 minutes and never came back out.
What he left behind was a strong 6:13. Kindel won six of his seven faceoffs, put a shot on goal and blocked one of his own while skating between Bryan Rust and Andrei Kuzmenko.
He also drew the first penalty kill shift of the night, which says plenty about where the coaching staff sees him now that Blake Lizotte is out week-to-week. Hendrix Lapierre slid onto the top power play unit in Kindel’s place, and Connor Dewar and Tristan Broz soaked up the extra minutes up front.
Rust did the heavy lifting on the opening goal, skating the puck through the Buffalo zone and dropping it to Dewar for a quick shot through traffic. Watch the feed:
Avery Hayes made his own case for a longer look, stealing the puck, spinning and ripping one short side with 1.7 seconds on the clock. Check it out:
Elmer Soderblom added an empty-netter to cap a 4-1 Pittsburgh win. Sergei Murashov stopped all 13 shots he faced before Joel Blomqvist took the second half of the game.
Kindel is trying to build on a rookie year almost nobody predicted. The 11th pick in the 2025 draft cracked the roster out of camp and put up 17 goals and 35 points in 77 games, and he enters this season penciled into the top nine.
The Penguins play Detroit on Tuesday and opens the regular season in Philadelphia on Sept. 30, so there are nine days to sort out how much this one costs.
