10:04 a.m.: The Stars have confirmed the signing. Johnston expanded on the bonus structure, reporting that Benn would receive a $500K bonus for 20, 30, 50, and 60 games played, $500K for a Western Conference Final win, and $500K for a Stanley Cup Final win.
9:05 a.m.: According to TSN’s Pierre LeBrun, the Dallas Stars are close to re-signing their captain, Jamie Benn, on a one-year contract. LeBrun added that the contract should be completed today, while TSN’s Darren Dreger shares that the contract is bonus-heavy. According to Frank Seravalli of the Daily Faceoff, Benn’s contract will be a one-year deal worth $1MM, featuring performance bonuses similar to other contracts for players over 35. TSN’s Chris Johnston reports that the contract can become a $4MM deal, meaning Benn will have $3MM available to him in performance bonuses.
Once completed, the new deal will leave the Stars with under $1MM in cap space entering the offseason. It effectively eliminates any chance Dallas will retain trade deadline acquisitions such as Mikael Granlund and Cody Ceci, or forward Evgenii Dadonov. Still, there was little expectation the Stars would pursue extensions with those players anyway, and they have effectively brought back the team’s core with some shrewd moves from General Manager Jim Nill over the last week.
Benn may no longer be a high-scoring power forward who can contend for the Art Ross Trophy, but he remains a crucial leader in the Stars’ locker room and a valuable secondary scorer. His scoring has declined significantly in recent years, dropping from nearly a point-per-game average in 2022-23 to 60 points in 2023-24 and 49 points in 2024-25. 
Like any aging player, Benn’s foot speed has also declined in recent years. Although he has never been known for his speed, Benn ranked in the 76th percentile with 504 bursts of 18-20 mph during the 2021-22 season, while the average was 300. In comparison, he recorded 383 bursts in the 2024-25 season, with the average at 326, according to NHL EDGE data.
Still, what he’s lost in offensive capabilities and speed, he’s made up for on the defensive side of the game. For the first time since the 2021-22 campaign, and only the fourth time of his career, the Stars deployed Benn in the defensive zone more than the offensive zone. He responded as well as he ever had, earning a 90.6% on-ice save percentage at even strength, while maintaining an 11.7% team on-ice shooting percentage while he’s on the ice at even strength, the second-best output of his career regarding the latter category.
Effectively, even with the potential of the contract becoming a $4MM agreement, Benn’s new contract appears to be a steal if he continues his defensive prowess. The bonus structure of the contract allows Dallas to push most of the overtures to their 2026-27 salary cap table, when the salary cap rises to $104MM.
Photo courtesy of Jerome Miron-Imagn Images.
“they have effectively brought back the team’s core”
So they weren’t good enough to beat Edmonton and they have the same team but worse.
Just wait to see who the coach is — I really think PDB couldn’t beat Edmonton, and someone else can with the team they have.
That’s exactly what I said. You’re subbing mikko for Marchment and hryckowian for dadonov and it’s the same team. And you’re supposed to be better. That’s not better…..
Making moves for the sake of making moves doesn’t work either. There’s a long, LONG list of teams across sports who build a core, run it back several times, and eventually break through. And it’s not like they got eliminated early – this was one of the final four teams alive this season also.
Good work by Nill to get Benn in at that number.
Yes but they’re still likely in a sticky situation next year if they are set on keeping Robertson and having to pay Harley. Looks like 2mm of those bonuses are highly likely and going to bleed into next year’s cap hit.
Good news for Dallas is that the cap is expected to go way up next season
Not surprised that Jamie Benn is staying in Dallas. Benn didn’t want to play anywhere else and GM Jim Nill didn’t want Benn to play anywhere else either as they both stated early on. Benn obviously took a significant discount in his AAV to stay in Dallas.
In what will likely amount to a $3mm cap hit by the time bonuses come into play, this is not a discount. He wasn’t getting more than that on the open market.
He scores 50 points again it is.
@mikeyziggy – He took a discount in base salary. Everything else is through incentives which is how he could hit $3M but it’s up to him if he can make that happen. The overtures go against the following season’s cap hit which is why he’s able to stay in Dallas. If he would have asked for his base salary to be $3M that would have probably sent him to FA instead of staying in Dallas.