For a team on a four-game losing streak \u2014 to say nothing of only one win in its past eight games (1-6-1) \u2014 the Pittsburgh Penguins were a buoyant bunch as they gathered for a morning skate Thursday in Cranberry.<\/p>\n
That\u2019s because Ben Kindel was there.<\/p>\n
The 19-year-old forward was present at UPMC Lemieux Sports Complex for treatment and testing after he fainted Tuesday afternoon during the team\u2019s flight home from Utah.<\/p>\n
After a 5-4 loss to the Utah Mammoth on Monday, the Penguins began their trek home, but approximately 10 minutes into their departure from Salt Lake City International Airport, Kindel was stricken by an episode of vasovagal, according to Penguins president of hockey operations Kyle Dubas, who on Thursday morning provided details about what happened.<\/p>\n
According to the Mayo Clinic, vasovagal causes the \u201cheart rate and blood pressure to drop suddenly\u201d when the \u201cbody overreacts to certain triggers.\u201d<\/p>\n
Dubas was uncertain as to what caused Kindel\u2019s episode and indicated he had no prior history of vasovagal.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe was given oxygen on the flight, regained consciousness and the determination was that the flight needed to land back in Salt Lake City in an emergency medical landing, at which time the plane was met by paramedics,\u201d Dubas said. \u201cAnd Ben was transported to the University of Utah (Hospital) for further treatment. Ben was cleared yesterday to travel back to Pittsburgh, which he did.\u201d<\/p>\n
As the bulk of the Penguins\u2019 traveling party eventually returned to Pittsburgh on Tuesday afternoon, Kindel remained in Utah along with assistant coach Nick Bonino, director of performance Rich Rotenberg, assistant general manager Jason Spezza and team physician Dr. Dharmesh Vyas.<\/p>\n
That quintet returned to Pittsburgh on Wednesday.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019re just happy to see him and know that he\u2019s doing well,\u201d Penguins forward Sidney Crosby said. \u201cThat\u2019s the most important thing. Having him here today was a bit of a lift for us. We\u2019re happy to see that. It was one of those things you don\u2019t really see that often. Everyone handled it great. We\u2019re happy to be here today getting ready for another game.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Penguins were preparing for a home contest against the Florida Panthers and weren\u2019t doing so under the best of circumstances following Kindel\u2019s ordeal, to say nothing of their losing skid. <\/p>\n
But given how dire things appeared Tuesday, they weren\u2019t necessarily preoccupied with a lack of desired results on the ice. <\/p>\n
\u201cFor a second, you put hockey aside,\u201d Penguins forward Blake Lizotte said. \u201cSometimes, that can be a good thing actually. A little bit of perspective. Thankfully, Ben is doing all right and is doing well. That was first and foremost. All the guys were worrying about that. <\/p>\n
\u201cBut once that\u2019s been kind of cleared up now, it\u2019s full steam ahead. \u2026 For us right now, it\u2019s not thinking about yesterday or the day before that or tomorrow even. It\u2019s thinking about tonight and bringing the best to the table tonight.\u201d <\/p>\n
The past month has been rife with stress away from the ice for the Penguins. On Sept. 22, Penguins forward Andrei Kuzmenko\u2019s father, Alexander, was killed by a bear while on a fishing trip in Russia. That prompted Kuzmenko to take a leave of absence to attend to his family.<\/p>\n
In many ways, hockey has been secondary for this hockey team.<\/p>\n
\u201cI don\u2019t think there\u2019s any blueprint for it,\u201d Crosby said. \u201cEveryone tries to support each other and be there. It\u2019s one of those things where you try to make the best of difficult situations. We\u2019re a family here. When guys come here, regardless of how long you come here, that\u2019s something we want them to feel right away. When you go through tough times like that, that\u2019s why.\u201d<\/p>\n
Procedurally, the Penguins placed Kindel on injured reserve Thursday. Dubas was quick to suggest there is no firm timeframe for Kindel to resume on-ice activities but was optimistic he could return relatively quickly.<\/p>\n
\u201cOur hope is to get everything done, tested back into training here in the next four days or so and see if he can return to practice on Sunday or Monday,\u201d Dubas said. \u201cBut I would put an asterisk on that by saying we\u2019ll see how everything goes before then.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Penguins would clearly like to see that. For the time being, they\u2019re just happy to see Kindel.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s family,\u201d Crosby said. \u201cThese are people that we spend a lot of time with, that we go through a lot with. You just want to see the best for everyone. A situation like that, it puts things in perspective pretty quickly.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"For a team on a four-game losing streak \u2014 to say nothing of only one win in its…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":891273,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[66],"tags":[385,99],"class_list":["post-891272","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nhl","tag-nhl","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/891272","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=891272"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/891272\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/891273"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=891272"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=891272"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=891272"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}