Ben Kindel returns to full practice for Penguins

Ben Kindel skated through every drill at UPMC Lemieux Sports Complex on Tuesday. It was his first full practice since a medical episode on the Penguins' charter flight home from Utah sent him to a hospital and knocked him out of the lineup. Read more: Ben Kindel returns to full practice for Penguins

Kindel lost consciousness on that flight out of Salt Lake City before medical staff treated him with oxygen and the plane turned back. He was taken to University of Utah Hospital.

General manager Kyle Dubas later described the episode as vasovagal, a reaction that drops heart rate and blood pressure and briefly cuts blood flow to the brain. Kindel missed the Penguins' last two games before flying home to Pittsburgh roughly a week ago.

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Full participant on Tuesday

Kindel was a full participant Tuesday and stayed for the entire hour-plus session, his first time back on the ice with teammates since the episode. He skated in the smaller group on Rink 2, wearing a regular sweater.

Coach Dan Muse used the session to try him at center between Evgeni Malkin and Egor Chinakhov. It's a combination the 19-year-old had not played this season.

Still, the line is not new. Kindel skated between Malkin and Chinakhov for just under 24 minutes last season, and the results were rough.

The trio posted a 38 percent Corsi share, a 32 percent expected-goals rate and only a 21 percent share of high-danger chances in a small sample.

Kindel enters the week with two goals and two assists in nine games, production he built almost entirely with other wingers before Tuesday. At 19, he is still finding out which linemates fit best alongside him.

"I feel pretty good," Kindel said, adding that he can't control what happened and is only looking to move forward from here.

He credited his teammates for making the return feel ordinary, saying they made it easy to come back and have it feel normal. Sidney Crosby, the Penguins captain, said he had seen Kindel around the rink before Tuesday's practice. "I've seen him around the rink here prior to being on the ice," Crosby said.

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Muse won't commit to Thursday

Muse would not say whether Ben Kindel is cleared to play Thursday, when the Penguins host the Utah Mammoth at PPG Paints Arena in their next game. The coach said the team will take Kindel's return day by day rather than commit to a target date.

So Pittsburgh has no game Wednesday, which gives Muse one more practice to decide. The rest of the lineup stayed mostly intact around the change, with Sidney Crosby still centering Tommy Novak and Rickard Rakell on the top line.

For now, Kindel has his jersey back and a new set of linemates. Whether he has his game back is a question the Mammoth may answer first.