Ben Kindel, player development and line usage: Treat your third-line like another scoring line

During his team’s run to the Stanley Cup back in 2015-16, then-Pittsburgh Penguins head coach Mike Sullivan was asked a question about the play of his third line. At the time it consisted of Phil Kessel, Nick Bonino and Carl Hagelin to form the vaunted HBK line.

I don’t remember who asked the question, or what the exact question was, what round it came in, or even the full answer from Sullivan.

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All I remember from him was his somewhat sarcastic quip at the beginning of his answer that was simply: “Which line is the third line?”

There was an element of coach-speak to it, but the main point he was trying to get across was that he knew they had three scoring lines that could steamroll over teams, provide offense, and swing a game or series in their favor. He wasn’t in the mood to assign a classification to them, and didn’t see a difference in them. Even if one of them (the HBK line) was clearly third on the team’s depth chart behind the Sidney Crosby and Evgeni Malkin lines.

He just saw his team as having three scoring lines.

He was right.

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It is a mindset teams should go for whether they have that many future Hall of Famers on their team or not. It should be a mindset in terms of construction and playing style.

Most teams seem to be doing it to some degree if they are able to do it.

I bring this up because I can envision a scenario where the potential of a Ben Kindel, Andrei Kuzmenko and Bryan Rust line gets dissected in terms of where certain players are on the depth chart, as well as the potential playing styles that could be asked of them.

There was already plenty of talk last season as to whether or not Kindel should be playing on a third line and what that could mean for his development. The same thing was also applied to Ville Koivunen and whether or not it made sense to have him playing a bottom-six role, when he has more of a top-six skillset and “needs to play top-six minutes.”

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There also might be some concern over Rust’s placement on such a line when he’s normally a top-six player, and whether or not Kuzmenko has the defensive approach to play there.

All of that is overthinking it.

Especially when you look at the way most NHL team’s distribute their forward ice-time.

It’s not necessarily a top-six vs. bottom-six approach.

It’s more of a top-nine vs. bottom-three approach.

I went back through every team’s even-strength forward ice-time usage during the 2025-26 season and looked at how it broke down among their top-three forwards (in theory, their first line) and each successive trio that followed. I limited it to forwards that played at least 40 games, and looked only at their even-strength ice-time per game.

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This is by no means a perfect look at a team’s line construction.

Line combinations are very fluid and have a tendency to change, players get injured, players miss time, players get promoted and demoted, etc. etc. etc.

But it does give at least a ballpark idea as to how much certain players are playing and how often they are used.

While the top-three forwards typically stood out above the pack for each team, there was only a small difference between them and the second trio of players. There was virtually no difference between the second-and third-groupings.

That means the top-nine forwards were all playing a comparable amount of ice-time.

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On average, the top-three forwards played around 15:20 of even-strength ice-time per game. The next trio played, on average, around 13:40 per game, which was only about 90 seconds less than the group above. The third trio played, on average, about 12:40 per game, which was only one minute less than the second trio.

If you assume each shift averages about 35-45 seconds, you’re only talking about a very small handful of shifts per game. Between the second-and third-lines it’s at most two shifts. In some cases it is only one shift.

If you’re playing everybody nearly the same amount, it only makes sense that you’re expecting the same level and style of play from them. And it’s not like the Penguins were ever asking the Kindel line, regardless of who his wingers were, to play any sort of simplified or chip-and-chase style.

They were asking them to play to their strengths and expecting them to push play and outscore their opponents.

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It worked. It was successful. And it was a big part of the team’s regular season success.

It wasn’t until you got down to the fourth grouping of forwards, which averaged about 9:30 per game, about three minutes less per game than the third line, where teams started to see a big difference in usage.

That’s where you start getting into a different role and a different style of play due to a drop in skill.

Here’s a look at the full, team-by-team breakdown, sorted in order of most average ice-time by top-three forwards. This is, again, just even-strength ice-time.

Every team is different in terms of depth and how many good forward options they actually have, and some teams do need to lean on their top forwards more because they just don’t have enough good forwards to play as often.

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Having enough good players matters in this exercise.

This Penguins team, even if it is lacking in prime-age, top-line superstar scorers, does have a lot of playable forwards, and it does have a lot of NHL forward depth.

Most teams were in the 14-16 minute range for their top-three, with a few exceptions and outliers at the top. Those were mostly teams that were extraordinarily top-heavy and had to rely more on their top-forwards. From there, literally every team was in the 13-14-minute range for the next three, and then the 12-13 minute range for the third group.

The fourth-lines, depending on the team’s depth, were in the 9-10 minute range.

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So it gets back to my original point here of: Why can’t Ben Kindel or Ville Koivunen or Bryan Rust or Andrei Kuzmenko skate on your third line if they would play nearly as much in a second-line role? Or if they would be asked to play the same way? I don’t think that extra one or two shifts is making or breaking the development of the young players. It’s not limiting their long-term upside or putting a ceiling on them as a “third-line player.”

I also don’t think it’s changing the way you expect Bryan Rust or Andrei Kuzmenko to play.

It shouldn’t be doing any of that.

It is simply the way the roster sets up in this moment.

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Where you start getting into major differences between the different groups of forwards and the different expectations offensively, from a big picture standpoint, is the special teams usage.

Who is getting power play time?

Who is getting first power play time vs. second power play time?

Who is getting shorthanded time as opposed to power play time?

That is where you start getting into different point totals, different offensive situations and where players separate themselves from a scoring perspective.

That is where the usage for a player like Kindel can be a little more scrutinized for his development. Is he getting those power play minutes? Is he getting opportunities with the first group? That is where his offensive game and point production can start to take big steps.

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Don’t focus on where he sits on the pre-game line chart and whether it’s first line, second line, third line, line 2A or line 2B. If he, Rust and Kuzmenko show they have chemistry and can play together and outplay teams, let them do it. The same thing applies if it’s Nicholas Robertson instead of Kuzmenko. Or if it’s Ville Koivunen or Rutger McGroarty instead of Robertson or Kuzmenko.

If there is anything that is going to give this Penguins team a chance to be competitive this season it’s going to be their forward depth and the fact they do have the ability to roll three potential scoring lines. I don’t know how well any of those lines are going to actually defend, but the offense should be there. They should be leaning into that. I suspect they will. Just as they did a season ago.