Fifteen years ago, on April 10, 2010, a rookie named Jamie Benn quietly closed an era of Dallas Stars hockey.
It was Mike Modano and Jere Lehtinen’s final game for the franchise, a regular-season game in Minnesota, when the 20-year-old Benn scored in the fourth round of a shootout to secure one final victory for the leaders of the Stars’ most successful epoch. It would be disingenuous to characterize that as a breakout moment; Benn tied for third on the team that year with 22 goals. But knowing what we do now, it feels apt that he would be the one to send two franchise luminaries on their way. Benn would spend the next two seasons climbing the ranks of the team’s scorers before leading the Stars in points in the lockout-shortened 2012-13 campaign. That September, he inherited the captaincy from Brenden Morrow, whom he had already usurped as the team’s dominant power forward. He hasn’t relinquished the “C” since.
Now here we are in 2024, with Benn celebrating his 35th birthday today. Finally, it’s time to wonder when and how Benn’s era of Stars hockey will come to a close like Modano and Lehtinen and Morrow’s before him.
This will be Benn’s 16th season in Dallas, equaling the number of seasons Modano played for the franchise after it relocated from Minnesota ahead of the 1993-94 season. By the midpoint of this campaign he will have surpassed Mondano in games played wearing a Stars jersey. When it comes to longevity in North Texas sports, no one touches Dirk Nowitzki’s 21 seasons with the Mavericks. But Benn is about to join Modano, Jason Witten, and L.P. Ladoucer as athletes to make it past 15 years in the local sports landscape.
He is an institution, a surefire member of his team’s Hall of Fame, and a lock to get his No. 14 jersey retired shortly after he wears it for the last time. And all of that matters when considering Benn doesn’t have a contract for next year.
The eight-year pact he signed with the Stars in 2017 is drawing to a close, and while there were moments of criticism throughout that deal—most notably the front office exploding from ownership on down against Benn and Tyler Seguin in 2018—Benn was never going to leave Dallas. He was too highly paid, too hard to move, and had the full no-movement clause to boot.
Now for the first time in nearly a decade, the Stars will have a decision about Benn’s future and whether that includes him wearing victory green.
And Benn can be a complicated figure.
Two seasons ago he silenced doubters with a “Benaissance” season, but that campaign ended with a black eye after his egregious penalty in Game 3 of the Western Conference final. In the biggest home game of his NHL career, Benn lost his cool and cross-checked Vegas Golden Knights captain Mark Stone in the neck.
Last season, Benn’s game normalized. The durability is still there—he played 82 games for a third straight season—but the nearly point-per-game production of the season prior was more of an aberration, as he finished with 60 points.
Benn also lost Joe Pavelski this summer. For the past five seasons, Pavelski served as a de facto co-captain and shield for Benn. Benn’s leadership has never been questioned internally by his troops, but outside questions and his awkwardness in dealing with the media—look at how he responded to the Stone incident—were deflected over the past five seasons by Pavelski.. Benn became a better captain and player when Pavelski arrived. Now he’ll be tasked with doing it without his newly retired lieutenant by his side.
It’s one of the reasons the front office will be closely watching this season. He’s no longer anywhere near the franchise’s marquee name. The Stars have been wildly efficient at shifting prominent roles to younger players, but Benn is still the emotional heartbeat of the team and now he has to find a way to be the moral compass that Pavelski was.
It’s fitting because Pavelski was 35 when he arrived in Dallas, leaving San Jose for a new challenge and somehow getting better with age for a couple of seasons. Benn isn’t leaving for a new franchise, but like Pavelski, he’s moving into a prove-it period of his career.
Benn is eligible for a contract extension; in fact, he is eligible to sign a 35-plus deal loaded with bonuses, as Pavelski did the past couple of years to help Dallas manipulate the salary cap.
If general manager Jim Nill has full say on this, a deal most likely will get done. But Benn also has the burden of impressing an owner who has repeatedly hinted, if not said that the captain hasn’t lived up to the lofty standards expected of him.
Benn is a man of few words, so don’t expect him to say much if anything about his future in Dallas. This much we know: as was the case with the star he replaced 15 years ago, it’s no secret he is in the twilight of his career. The question is how much longer he still has to shine.
Author
