Ben Kindel said he was "still sick to my stomach" thinking about the way the Penguins' season ended, a Cam York overtime goal seconds after Kindel lost a faceoff in the Penguins' own end in Philadelphia.
"Nothing you can do about it now but just look to use it as motivation in the future," Kindel said at the Penguins' clean out day on Friday.
That sinking feeling and what Kindel and other young players can take from it may have been the greatest benefits of the Penguins' short-lived run this postseason.
This year marked the first such playoff experience for a few of the Penguins' young players -- Kindel, obviously, as a rookie, as well as Egor Chinakhov and Elmer Soderblom, who hadn't experienced clinching the playoffs with their previous teams before being traded for Pittsburgh.
For all three, the quick exit served as a learning experience. For Kindel, it was getting to see what "high-stakes games" are like in the pros.
"The physicality of it, the speed, the pace needed to play at, the intensity is higher, and everything just gets raised," Kindel said when I asked what his takeaways were. "It's just trying to raise your game to another level in the playoffs that's going to be key."
Soderblom felt as if it was a "great experience" for his development.
"It's a tough, tough playoff out there," said Soderblom. "You know, it's tough games and all the small battles matter. It's more physical, it's just a different level."
Chinakhov stressed the importance of preparation.
"It's so much a different game," he said. "But we have to be ready for that. We have to learn from that."
There's some fan perception that this was, in a way, a "wasted" season. They didn't have what it takes to make a real run, but they played themselves out of a draft lottery position and a shot at Gavin McKenna, the disappointing middle-ground. But if the Penguins are going to get to contention soon, these young players are going to be part of that turnaround. And for that reason, this experience had real value to them and the organization. Because as Dan Muse explained, there's no way to fully understand the playoffs other than playing in the playoffs.
"For the guys who it was their first time, or maybe for guys with limited playoff experience, there's nothing that I can say that can fully have them understand until they're actually in it, they're actually in the fight and in those moments and the energy and just everything that's around it," Muse said. "Now the season's over. We can't change that, but we can get better from all the experiences that we've had, and those experiences in the playoffs are absolutely big ones. We have to make sure that we're taking that and we're making ourselves better moving forward, both individually and collectively."
THE ASYLUM
Playoff exit a learning moment for young Penguins
Ben Kindel said he was "still sick to my stomach" thinking about the way the Penguins' season ended, a Cam York overtime goal seconds after Kindel lost a faceoff in the Penguins' own end in Philadelphia.
"Nothing you can do about it now but just look to use it as motivation in the future," Kindel said at the Penguins' clean out day on Friday.
That sinking feeling and what Kindel and other young players can take from it may have been the greatest benefits of the Penguins' short-lived run this postseason.
This year marked the first such playoff experience for a few of the Penguins' young players -- Kindel, obviously, as a rookie, as well as Egor Chinakhov and Elmer Soderblom, who hadn't experienced clinching the playoffs with their previous teams before being traded for Pittsburgh.
For all three, the quick exit served as a learning experience. For Kindel, it was getting to see what "high-stakes games" are like in the pros.
"The physicality of it, the speed, the pace needed to play at, the intensity is higher, and everything just gets raised," Kindel said when I asked what his takeaways were. "It's just trying to raise your game to another level in the playoffs that's going to be key."
Soderblom felt as if it was a "great experience" for his development.
"It's a tough, tough playoff out there," said Soderblom. "You know, it's tough games and all the small battles matter. It's more physical, it's just a different level."
Chinakhov stressed the importance of preparation.
"It's so much a different game," he said. "But we have to be ready for that. We have to learn from that."
There's some fan perception that this was, in a way, a "wasted" season. They didn't have what it takes to make a real run, but they played themselves out of a draft lottery position and a shot at Gavin McKenna, the disappointing middle-ground. But if the Penguins are going to get to contention soon, these young players are going to be part of that turnaround. And for that reason, this experience had real value to them and the organization. Because as Dan Muse explained, there's no way to fully understand the playoffs other than playing in the playoffs.
"For the guys who it was their first time, or maybe for guys with limited playoff experience, there's nothing that I can say that can fully have them understand until they're actually in it, they're actually in the fight and in those moments and the energy and just everything that's around it," Muse said. "Now the season's over. We can't change that, but we can get better from all the experiences that we've had, and those experiences in the playoffs are absolutely big ones. We have to make sure that we're taking that and we're making ourselves better moving forward, both individually and collectively."
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