Ben Kindel collapses on Penguins plane leaving Utah

Thursday morning, Dubas went through what happened on the Penguins plane step by step. It was scary, and the Pittsburgh beat had it within minutes.

Josh Yohe

@JoshYohe_PGH

Kyle Dubas says Ben Kindel collapsed on team plane about 10 minutes info flight. He regained consciousness after receiving oxygen on the plane. He was cleared to travel back to Pittsburgh. Two doctors, Nick Bonino and Jason Spezza stayed with him in Utah.

Here's the rest of it. The Penguins had just lost 5-4 to the Utah Mammoth, and the team plane had to turn around and land back at Salt Lake City International Airport so medical staff could get to Kindel. He was taken to University of Utah Medical Center. The people who stayed behind tell you how seriously the organization took it: 2 team doctors, assistant coach Nick Bonino and assistant GM Jason Spezza all stayed with a teenager in a hospital out West while everyone else flew home.

The good news is what came next. Kindel was cleared to fly back to Pittsburgh, and Dubas sounded hopeful about how soon he could be back on the ice.

Josh Yohe

@JoshYohe_PGH

Dubas is hopeful that Kindel will return to practice next week.

Note the word hopeful. That isn't a timeline. Kindel is on injured reserve, and Dubas made it clear the team won't rush this: 'We will obviously follow very strict guidelines to ensure a safe return to training and play for Ben. That's our primary goal and paramount to his future and health.' That's the right call for a kid the Penguins took 11th overall in 2025 and are building around. As for the diagnosis, vasovagal episodes are common, and they're usually less alarming than watching a guy go down at 30,000 feet.

Seth Rorabaugh

@SethRorabaugh

Per Kyle Dubas, Ben Kindel suffered from a bout of vasovagal. Per the Mayo Clinic, it causes “heart rate and blood pressure to drop suddenly” when the “body overreacts to certain triggers.” Kindel is home in Western Pa. No timeframe for recovery as of yet.

Put simply, the body overreacts to a trigger, heart rate and blood pressure drop, and the person passes out. Most people recover fine from a single episode. But a professional athlete who collapses mid-flight is going to get every test there is before he's cleared for contact, and that's how it should be. Until doctors are done, the team's whole message is that there's no set recovery timeframe.

Meanwhile the Penguins have to keep playing. Bryan Rust went on IR too, and Rutger McGroarty was called up to cover the forward group. Watch for whether Kindel is skating with the team next week like Dubas hopes. Mostly, though, everybody's just glad he's home in Western Pa. and doing better after a flight that could have gone a lot worse.