PENGUINS

The Penguins' management and coaching staff came into training camp with no concrete plans when it came to how many preseason games to give first-round pick Ben Kindel.

"Some of these decisions are based on what we've been seeing, how he's played," Dan Muse said on Monday morning of the decision to give Kindel his fourth preseason game. "You get a little bit of a starting point, then as we go, you see guys in more situations, it's been good for him. If we didn't feel this way, we wouldn't have him playing in this game."

Kindel has absolutely earned each of his four preseason games, with the only game he's missed in the preseason schedule being half of a back-to-back over the weekend. He's legitimately been one of their best forward prospects.

Kindel's performance in the Penguins' 2-1 win over the Red Wings here in Detroit on Monday was his best yet. And it might be time to move past a discussion on Kindel earning more preseason games, and start talking about whether Kindel has earned the chance to stay beyond the preseason, too.

Kindel netted his first goal in a Penguins uniform in the win. Ryan Shea passed the puck through the stick of a Red Wings defensemen to Kindel, and Kindel easily put a wrist shot past the glove of John Gibson:

"(Ville Koivunen) made a good defensive play in the D zone," Kindel said of the sequence leading to his goal. "It popped to me, I got it over to (Avery Hayes), he made a really nice play on the pinching D and (Shea) took over, made a really nice play to me. Just got a lucky break up the middle and it went in."

It was a nice goal, against an NHL goaltender. That's great for an 18-year-old kid playing his first NHL games of any sort. It's also not even the most notable thing Kindel has shown in this exhibition season, or even in this game.

Kindel has played center, he's played wing. He's played top six, he's played bottom six. He's played on the power play, and the penalty-kill. He's played against prospects with a similar experience level to him, as well as NHL All-Star skaters. He's played with prospects, and he's played with older players. He's thrived in every situation.

Kindel on Monday centered an all-kid line with Hayes and Koivunen, and they were the Penguins' most dominant force in the win. They led the Penguins' skaters in offensive zone time for pretty much the duration of the game, and their advanced numbers were just downright crazy. When all three were on the ice together, the Penguins controlled 88.24% of the shot attempts (15-2), 90% of all unblocked attempts (9-1), 85.71% of all shots on goal (6-1), all high-danger chances (4-0), all scoring chances (7-6) and an absurd 98.26% of all expected goals. 

Surely, deployment might be a factor, right? Easy assignments?

The Kindel line was on the ice for four offensive zone faceoffs compared to three in their own end, and their most frequent competition was a line of Alex DeBrincat, Patrick Kane and Marco Kasper ... the Red Wings' leading goal-scorer last season, a future Hall of Famer, and a recent first-round pick who was in the NHL last season. They all got beat by a line centered by an 18-year-old kid out of the WHL.

Kindel has now played three games at center and one at wing. And often, when a young player is breaking into the NHL as a center, faceoffs are a huge adjustment as they go up against bigger, more experienced players ... but not for Kindel. He went 6-5 in faceoffs tonight, improving his overall record in the dot to 58.54% this preseason. Of Penguins forwards to take at least 20 draws this preseason, the only one with a better record than Kindel is a guy by the name of Sidney Crosby, at 69.23%.

This was one of Kindel's games with less penalty-killing time, just 52 seconds. But that's nearly a full minute in which the Red Wings didn't even record a shot on goal, against a Detroit power-play unit that included fellow 2025 first-round pick Carter Bear, as well as some of their actual NHL players.

And, my gosh, the skating. All the worrying about his skating based off a few prospect blogs, labeling it as one of his weaknesses leading up to the draft. He's playing with and against NHL players, and in each game he's played he's shown an ability to keep up with the pace. He clearly does need to put on strength, but what 18-year-old prospect doesn't? The speed, however, is there.

"I'm moving my feet and reading the game and letting the game come to me," Kindel said. "When I move my feet, good things happen, versus when I slow the game down. I'm going to keep trying to do that."

The conversation to this point has largely been surrounding Kindel continuing to earn himself preseason games before he inevitably goes back to Calgary in the WHL for the season.

But why are we stopping there? What's stopping Kindel from sticking around?

Kindel, like Harrison Brunicke, can't go to the AHL full-time this season. For either player, it's either the NHL or back to junior. And there's been a lot of talk about someone like Brunicke getting a nine-game tryout at the NHL level before he probably goes back to the WHL. But really, the path to do so might be even clearer for Kindel.

Kindel, as previously mentioned, can play center and wing, in the top six or bottom six, and either special teams unit. And the Penguins very well may have openings at forward to start the season, with Kevin Hayes and Rutger McGroarty sidelined, and Noel Acciari potentially not being ready to start the season. Tristan Broz could come up and step into that role, sure. But he could come up at any point during the year. Why not give Kindel that chance to start, since he's both on a hot streak and can't be recalled midseason?

I asked Muse if Kindel is in that conversation for a nine-game tryout, and he didn't exactly shut it down.

"With where we're at in our process, we're still having a lot of discussions on everything and everybody" Muse said. "We still have a couple of exhibition games left. The practices, they're really important, we put a lot of stock in our practice days and the evaluation that go into those as well. We'll have meetings and discussions on everybody. That's just where we are."

For Kindel, he's not trying to think that far ahead yet. He's thriving by putting all his energy into the task right in front of him, and that's what he's going to keep doing.

"I'm just trying to live every day," he told me. "Every day that I'm here I'm grateful to get this opportunity, this experience. That's been my mindset going through the entire camp."

The Penguins have a pair of preseason games left, Wednesday and Friday, both against the Sabres. Kindel, tonight, earned at least one more look. And if he plays well enough on Wednesday and earns another game, why stop there?

GETTY

Tristan Jarry makes a save on Monday in Detroit

MORE FROM THE GAME

• Tristan Jarry made his first full-game appearance of the preseason and stopped 21 of 22 shots. He was fine. The "problem" for much of the preseason games so far has been that the team has been good enough defensively that the goaltender isn't tested too heavily, so there's not a lot to go off of. The lone goal that got past Jarry in this one came in a rare collapse between the Alexander Alexeyev-Chase Pietila pairing, which would be a pair in the AHL together if anything.

• Can't mention Pietila without making sure it's clear that he has been a bright spot in camp. The right-handed defenseman is the lone prospect remaining who is a sure first-year pro this year, which itself says a lot. The other incoming AHL rookie defensemen are already down in the AHL camp.

This was Pietila's first preseason game, and he was a menace. It seemed like every time he was on the ice during a stoppage in play, he was getting under the skin of opponents and drawing ire in some way or another, sometimes from his physicality just prior. That's all a huge part of his game, and something he showed in Wheeling when he ended up there last season after his college season ended.

Muse doesn't often share his impressions of young guys publicly, not wanting to give off the idea that he's already decided on what kind of player someone is and put them in a box, so to speak. But elements of Pietila's game really stood out to him.

"He's had a strong camp," Muse said. "You go back right from the very beginning, he's continued to get better, continued to get more comfortable. You get that first exhibition game, that can be tough. The later you get to the exhibition game, the more of a veteran lineup you might be seeing on the other side. And he handled himself really well. On the defensive side, he's a guy that's hard to play against. He takes a lot of pride there in the defensive side, his box outs, his low play. He showed those things. When it came with the puck, overall he was making good plays and dancing the puck. Credit to him, he earned the right to play in a game like this based on the camp he's had. It's been great to see."

Shot attempts were even at 8-8 with Pietila on the ice. His five shot attempts trailed only Kindel's seven. He had two shots on goal, one hit, and one block.

• The other Penguins goal came from Tommy Novak. Kind of a flukey play -- he tried passing the puck to Filip Hallander, but it bounced off Hallander and back toward Novak, and ended up right in front of his stick at the side of the net and he knocked it in.

• Jack St. Ivany and Boko Imama each had five hits. Imama brought some facet of an identity to a fourth line with Valtteri Puustinen and Joona Koppanen, with the former not attempting a shot on goal during the game and the latter unsuccessfully attempting three

St. Ivany continued an overall strong camp in which he's bringing steady defensive and physical play. He hasn't gotten a ton of attention, but his game is also the kind where if he's playing it well, he's not going to be getting much attention. Doing the little things right, playing well defensively isn't going to be flashy.