The Pittsburgh Penguins watched the draft unfold as to be expected in the top-10 before they stepped up to 11. Even we mocked the top-10 correctly. It had some slight variance here or there, but usually only by one spot —the draft didn’t unfold in an unexpected way prior to the Pens’ turn to pick.
Despite the rumors that big fireworks could go off via trades, there weren’t any trades at all during the early part of the draft. The Pens took to the virtual stage in the decentralized draft and made their first pick.
The Penguins elected to draft center Benajmin Kindel from the WHL. It’s a bit off the board in the sense that others like Victor Eklund, Kashawn Aitcheson and Jackson Smith were linked to Pittsburgh in the pre-draft process but Kyle Dubas and the Pens decided to go in a different direction.
#LetsGoPens select Benjamin Kindel 11th. I ranked him 8th.
Kindel is a bit undersized, but you usually need to make a compromise somewhere to get a player who scored 99 points in the WHL in his draft year outside the top 10. pic.twitter.com/rQd3DZlRWh
— Patrick Bacon (@TopDownHockey) June 28, 2025