NHL Stats<\/a> reports that Kindel, who has scored five goals this season and won\u2019t turn 19 until April, has already tallied the sixth-most goals by any Penguins player aged 18 or younger.<\/p>\nOnly Sidney Crosby (39), Jordan Staal (29), Jaromir Jagr (18), Craig Simpson (7) and Doug Bodger (5) recorded more goals for the franchise before their respective 19th birthdays.<\/p>\n
Kindel also joins Crosby, Jagr, Staal and Simpson as the fifth player in Penguins history to be credited with multiple goals in a single game before turning 19.<\/p>\n
The 18-year-old earned the Penguins\u2019 second goal of the night thanks to his presence in the paint when a shot ricocheted in late in the first period.<\/p>\n
He scored his fifth of the season by ringing a shot in off the post while playing with the top power play unit midway through the second period.<\/p>\n
As of the time of Kindel\u2019s fifth goal, all other 2025 NHL draft picks had combined for a total of six goals, as noted by Penguins PR.<\/p>\n
That opponent total almost entirely belongs to top pick Matthew Schaefer, the rookie defenseman who has scored five goals in his first 12 games for the New York Islanders.<\/p>\n
No. 2 pick Michael Misa has also put up a goal for the San Jose Sharks.<\/p>\n
Despite taking a three-goal lead into the third period, the Penguins will come out of Monday night\u2019s contest without a point after allowing four unanswered Leafs goals in a span of just over 10 minutes.<\/p>\n
On the bright side, Kindel recorded a career high with seven shots (four at even strength, three on the power play) in the loss.<\/p>\n
He also saw by far the most playing time of his NHL career, beating his previous high by more than seven minutes after seeing 22:23 on the ice in Monday\u2019s loss.<\/p>\n
The Penguins confirmed their decision to burn the first year of Kindel\u2019s entry-level contract last week, when they kept the rookie in Pittsburgh for his rookie season-triggering 10th game of the season.<\/p>\n
Kindel is continuing to prove that was the right decision. Given his ranking alongside Schaefer as the highest-scoring members of the draft so far, he\u2019s also so far justified Kyle Dubas\u2019 decision to select him higher than some consensus rankings at No. 11 in the 2025 draft.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"One of the most positive aspects of the Pittsburgh Penguins\u2019 Monday night collapse against the Toronto Maple Leafs…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":355184,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[42],"tags":[834,293,62,67,132,68],"class_list":{"0":"post-355183","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-nhl","8":"tag-general","9":"tag-nhl","10":"tag-sports","11":"tag-united-states","12":"tag-unitedstates","13":"tag-us"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115491920070934703","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/355183","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=355183"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/355183\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/355184"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=355183"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=355183"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=355183"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}