Jamie Benn is about to hit a number that only one other player has reached in a Stars sweater, and it says plenty about the career he’s built in Dallas.
A goal against the San Jose Sharks on Saturday night left the 18-year veteran one point away from 1,000 for his career. If he gets there, Benn will become only the second skater in franchise history to do it, trailing just Hall of Famer Mike Modano.
That milestone alone would put Benn in rare company, but his case has always been more complicated than a clean stat line. He has never been a high-volume scorer, and he’s one of the last active players still skating without a visor.
Yet he also owns something Modano never did: the Art Ross Trophy. Benn won the NHL scoring title in 2014-15 after piling up a career-best 52 assists and edging John Tavares, then with the New York Islanders, by a single point.
It remains the Stars’ only league scoring title.
The bigger question hanging over Benn’s career is what all of this means when the Hall of Fame conversation starts in earnest. When he retires, the 37-year-old will join a long line of NHL veterans whose resumes are strong enough to spark debate but not necessarily strong enough to guarantee a plaque in Toronto.
He has 417 goals in 1,269 games, and reaching 500 goals would give his Hall case a much stronger push. So would another run at the Stanley Cup.
That part of the resume is still unfinished. Benn has worn the captain’s “C” for 14 seasons, but Dallas is 1-3 in Western Conference Final appearances under his leadership, and the Stanley Cup championship that would help settle the debate has never arrived. There’s also a bigger historical wrinkle: Benn could become the first Art Ross Trophy winner since the award was introduced in 1947-48 to miss out on the Hockey Hall of Fame.
He’s not alone among current stars with that trophy on the shelf. The list of active Art Ross winners includes Connor McDavid, Nikita Kucherov, Sidney Crosby, Evgeni Malkin, Leon Draisaitl, Patrick Kane, and Alex Ovechkin.
Outside that group, Jaromir Jagr is the only Art Ross winner not in the Hall, and his eligibility keeps getting pushed back as he continues playing professionally in Czechia. For the rest of those names, induction feels inevitable.
Benn’s path is less certain.
What isn’t really up for debate is his place in Stars history. Dallas has retired only six numbers: Neal Broten’s No.
7, Bill Goldsworthy’s No. 8, Modano’s No.
9, Bill Masterton’s No. 19, Jere Lehtinen’s No. 26, and Sergei Zubov’s No.
- Among the franchise’s longest-tenured players, Benn and Lehtinen stand out because they spent their entire NHL careers with the organization.
Masterton’s story is different, of course, having played only 38 games before his tragic death at age 29.
The organization has also honored key figures from its championship past through its Stars Hall of Fame, including Derian Hatcher, Ed Belfour, Joe Nieuwendyk, and coach Ken Hitchcock.
Benn’s own legacy is a little more singular. He’s the longest-serving captain in franchise history.
He’s on the verge of becoming the second player ever to reach 1,000 points in a Stars uniform. He’ll also become only the second player to appear in more than 1,300 games for the franchise.
Modano may still sit atop the franchise record book, but Benn has carved out his own place through a different kind of resume. He’s one of the few Stars players to win an NHL award while wearing the sweater, joining Nieuwendyk, Lehtinen, Al MacAdam, Danny Grant, Billy Smith, Marty Turco, Ed Belfour, and Roman Turek.
So even if Benn never gets to 500 goals and never gets his hands on the Stanley Cup, the end of the road still looks like a banner-raising moment. That’s why the next point matters. Few players in Stars history have done more for the franchise, and with every game that passes, Benn keeps adding to a legacy that already feels impossible to ignore.
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There is, though, an immediate wrinkle to the move. Because Poirier changed hands before landing with Dallas, the Stars cannot simply send him straight to their AHL affiliate and have to navigate the waiver process again before that becomes possible. For now, the reunion is real, but the path to where he actually plays next is still unsettled. [Read more 🡒]
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Poirier's return gives Dallas another depth option to sort through as the season unfolds, even if his immediate role remains unclear. He has yet to get into game action this year, so the next step is less about recent performance than it is about where the Stars decide he fits in their crease picture moving forward. [Read more 🡒]
Sharks Early Slide Is Raising A Bigger Internal Concern
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Ryan Warsofsky has kept the focus on development, even as the mistakes keep piling up and the conversation shifts toward how the lineup is being managed. The way playing time is distributed has become part of the backdrop, especially with important young pieces like Macklin Celebrini carrying a heavy load. For the Sharks, the issue is no longer just the losses themselves, but whether the choices being made around those losses are helping or hindering the long-term picture. [Read more 🡒]