Analyzing’s Ben Kindel age-18 success after ninth place finish in Calder voting
PITTSBURGH, PA - APRIL 27: Ben Kindel #81 of the Pittsburgh Penguins prepares to take the ice against the Philadelphia Flyers in Game Five of the First Round of the 2026 Stanley Cup Playoffs at PPG PAINTS Arena on April 27, 2026 in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. (Photo by Joe Sargent/NHLI via Getty Images) | NHLI via Getty Images Ben Kindel picked up votes and finished ninth in the Calder voting. The award was announced early and handed to the unanimous winner, Matthew Schaefer live on national television.
Final voting breakdown on the 2025-26 Calder Trophy: pic. twitter. com/HNAAlZ4Ndf — Chris Johnston (@reporterchris) May 13, 2026 Considering Kindel in his draft+1 wasn’t even expected to be in the NHL until his training camp performance forced his way into the picture, it’s a nice little recognition to pickup votes.
It would have required a lot more points to standout as a top-3 choice in the voting but doesn’t take anything away from the bright future that Kindel has. While Kindel was stacked up against all rookies for this voting, for added nuance it helps to consider what playing as an 18-year old in the NHL might mean for the future. Via Sportsreference.
com we looked at 18-year old forwards since 2005-06, taking out the ringers of this category like first overall picks like Sidney Crosby (102 points), Nathan MacKinnon (63), Macklin Celebrini (63) and Connor Bedard (61) who belong a notch above the ’common’ type of performers at this incredibly young age. Kindel had the sixth most points of this group, and would rank 12th when including all age-18 forwards. Of this list, only Cole Silinger (picked 12th), Zach Benson (13th), David Pastrnak (25th) and Ryan O’Reilly (33rd) were lower draft picks in their respective drafts than Kindel was, which speaks to the rarity of a forward outside of the top-10 producing points as an 18-year old.
In the last 20 years most of the draft+1 forwards are going to be top-10 picks, only a very select handful are going to be in the sample. This chart can be useful to show areas of growth. There was once a world where Pastranak, a future 60-goal scorer, scored 10 goals in a season (albeit, in 46 games since he spent time in the AHL that season).