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.