Ben Kindel
Pittsburgh Penguins · C · shoots R · 19 · RFA at expiry
Contract, value & projections
- Paid
- Not on file (no sourced cap hit)
- Worth
- 4.8% of the cap
- Next
- Not on file (not projected yet)
- Drive (3 seasons)
- points of chance share lost with him on · what this is#366Ben Kindel Drive rank: 80% rank range 113 to 568 of 678 Likely a top-400 skater; anywhere from 113th to 568th.
Tonight PIT do not play · next league date 2026-10-24 · latest move: The Pittsburgh Penguins activated F Ben Kindel. (2026-10-03)
Production and deployment
How the points were built
Official NHL 2025–26 regular-season reports. A missing split stays “—”; it is never converted to zero.
Organizational context
C regulars in PIT
The all-team median is . PIT’s farm system sits #20 in the maintained two-board consensus.
Questions a GM still has to answer
- How much of the scoring comes at five-on-five, on special teams, or into an empty net?
- Is the player creating the play, finishing it, or receiving a secondary point?
- Does deployment reveal trust, scarcity, underuse, or a role the roster cannot offer?
- What contract, acquisition cost, development alternative and Cup-window effect complete the argument?
White noise · as of 2026-10-18 · social 2026-10-18
Ben Kindel is talked about more than most (76th percentile); attention this week is 2.24× his usual
How much he is being talked about: the league's own stories tagged to him, daily pageviews of his Wikipedia article against his own 90-day baseline, posts naming him on the connected networks (Bluesky), and the roster moves and listings that make noise. A measure of attention. Whether it affects a player is his business, and a question the history will let us test later.
Social: .
Contract · PIT
Cap hit not published
2025–26 through 2027–28 · RFA at expiry. Certified
Measures · 2025–26 · 80% rank ranges
Where Ben Kindel ranks, and how sure we are
Each rank is the 10th to 90th percentile of his place when every skater's value is redrawn 1,000 times from his own band. One season rarely separates a player from the dozens around him.
- #366#113 to #568 of 678
Likely a top-400 skater; anywhere from 113th to 568th.
In 0 of 100 seasons like this one, he finishes in the top ten.
9 of 20 dots sit above zero (the average regular). Each dot is one equally likely outcome (1 in 20). - #217#75 to #492 of 678
Likely a top-300 skater; anywhere from 75th to 492nd.
In 1 of 100 seasons like this one, he finishes in the top ten.
14 of 20 dots sit above zero (the average regular). Each dot is one equally likely outcome (1 in 20). - #499#195 to #670 of 744
Likely a top-500 skater; anywhere from 195th to 670th.
In 0 of 100 seasons like this one, he finishes in the top ten.
2 of 20 dots sit above zero (the average regular). Each dot is one equally likely outcome (1 in 20). - #136#52 to #400 of 678
Likely a top-200 skater; anywhere from 52nd to 400th.
In 1 of 100 seasons like this one, he finishes in the top ten.
17 of 20 dots sit above zero (the average regular). Each dot is one equally likely outcome (1 in 20). - #434#152 to #594 of 678
Likely a top-400 skater; anywhere from 152nd to 594th.
In 0 of 100 seasons like this one, he finishes in the top ten.
8 of 20 dots sit above zero (the average regular). Each dot is one equally likely outcome (1 in 20).
Shot quality · 2025-26
Expected goals
CapOrCup's shot model (distance, angle, shot type, strength, rebounds, rushes), trained on 2023-24 and 2024-25 and tested on unseen games (AUC ). Finishing is goals minus expected goals; it is noisy in one season.
CapOrCup measures · 2025-26
What happens while he plays
Measured from the league's play-by-play and shift charts, not from the scoresheet. Expected goals are counted for every player on the ice, and a goal is credited to whoever was on the ice when the sequence began, including players who had changed off before it was scored.
Advanced scoring · 2025-26
Goals, assists and plus/minus, weighted by what they changed
Every goal counts the win probability it added, scaled so the average goal is 1.0: a late tying goal counts several, a goal at 6-1 or into an empty net late counts little. Plus/minus also credits the players on the ice when the goal's sequence began.
Shot map · 2025-26
Where he shoots from, and how it goes
Every unblocked shot placed by distance, angle and shot type. His rate from each spot is set against the league's rate for the same shot from the same spot, so the edge is against everyone else taking that shot, not against an average.
NHL EDGE tracking · 2025-26
Speed, shot and ice
From the NHL's own player-tracking data. Percentiles are the NHL's: the share of the league below this player.
Goal archive ·
Every goal, with the league's video
Preseason, regular season and playoffs are kept apart. Each row links to the NHL's own highlight page; no video is hosted here. Where a clip has been reviewed, the reading of it is a model judgement of the frames, not a measurement.
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Career arc ·
Ben Kindel, season by season
Each dot is one season. The amber bar is what his earlier seasons and his age predicted for that season (), so a dot far above its bar is a season the numbers did not see coming. The shaded band is where most players at his position sit at each age.
Position band: .
What the numbers found
No shipped label applies. A label is a measured finding about a run of seasons (for example, a spike that came back to the old level), and it is shown only for label types that passed their test on held-out seasons.
Projection at the draft
At the draft the model expected through his age-25 season (80% band ). He logged , between the 10th percentile and the median. The model was applied to his draft class without being fitted or tested on it.
Every season
| Season | Age | GP | Level | Expected (80%) |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2025-26 | ||||
| 2026-27 |
Source: CapOrCup careers desk (method and league curves) · as of 2026-10-18
Club listings · licensed feeds
What the club lists him as
An injury listing and a projected slot are the club's statements relayed by a licensed feed, shown with their dates. CapOrCup infers nothing from them.
Projected slot · (PIT depth chart as of 2026-10-12; Sportradar NHL API v7, team depth charts)
Roster moves · as of 2026-10-17
Latest club announcements
Waivers, claims, injured reserve, the minors and signings as the club announced them (Sportradar NHL API v7, league transfers feed; licensed feed (30-day trial)). No cause is read into an injured-reserve placement.
2026-10-03 · activated · The Pittsburgh Penguins activated F Ben Kindel.
2026-09-27 · placed on injured reserve · The Pittsburgh Penguins placed F Ben Kindel on injured reserve.
Comparables at the same age
Who looked like this at
Careers are compared as league-adjusted points per game by age, over the same ages. The comparables below are the closest lines, and what matters is the spread of what they did next, not any single name.
This player so far:
| Player | Distance (lower is closer) | What he did afterwards |
|---|---|---|
| Aleksander BarkovC · matched at ages | ||
| Bradly NadeauL · matched at ages | ||
| Brayden SchennC · matched at ages | ||
| Kevin FialaL · matched at ages | ||
| Corey PerryR · matched at ages | ||
| Zach BensonL · matched at ages | ||
| Clayton KellerR · matched at ages | ||
| Kailer YamamotoR · matched at ages |
Reading it
If most comparables became NHL regulars and their later peak sits well above this player's current line, the numbers say there is room to grow. If most did not, the numbers say the odds are against it. Either way it is what the data shows, not a name chosen to flatter.
Fit components (description)
Ben Kindel: role, system and coach, as measured
What the shift charts say about Ben Kindel's role and his club's game, and what the rules allow. No fit number is shown: fit: not yet validated.
Rules that travel with him: passes. Club-specific rules (50 contracts, 23-man roster, the two front offices) are on each team's Moves tab.
- Trade protection: passes. not yet eligible for a clause (CBA 11.8(a)). CBA Art. 11.8(a)
- Waiver exemption: passes. signed at 18: exempt through 3 seasons or 160 NHL games (now season 2, 77 games). CBA Art. 13.4; CBA Art. 13.4 (11-game rule)
as of 2026-04-16