Confirmed Signing with Link: [DAL] Jamie Benn (8 years, $9.5M AAV)

[Drydenwasthebest]

Jamie Benn is worth every single penny and more! That is a cap and team friendly deal for a 26 year old 30-41 goal scoring forward about to enter his prime! Well done Dallas!!!

 

[FirstRowUpperDeck]

He could've gotten a lot more.

He's probably a top 3 player in the world right now.

Stars did have some leverage, namely no state tax and more importantly, a future. Everyone knows you can get max dollars from a struggling team, aka, Lucic going to Edmonton. Now, with McDavid, you can make a case for their future, but its still 3 years behind where the Stars are.

Plus, you sign that bigger contract, and you are automatically on a team struggling to sign players to surround you. Not to mention, they signed your big bro, which is a perk, not a main thing, since he might be gone to Vegas.....but if you like Vegas, well maybe another perk.....

Short version - I think it ended up right about where it needed. No way it was going to be lower than $8.5 Stamkos signed (and most think he is downside bound) and Nill was going to argue he didn't want to give a $10M contract. My bet is Jamie willingly took $9.5 and most negotiations were between 9M and that, with term being discussed more.

But, what do I know?

 

[LightningStorm]

Very happy about this deal, especially keeping him for under $10 M AAV. When his career is complete Benn might be the greatest Dallas Star of all time.

 

[WhatWhat]

Benn is a good example of why you don't sign very promising young players to 5 year deals when they are 22 or 23. They would have been much better to lock him up for 7-8 years at a higher cap hit. Having him at say $6M or $6.2M until he is 30 or 31 would have been ideal. You can still re-sign him then if he's still playing at a high end, but you would get him for a shorter term and much lower AAV when he's in his 30's.

I think that's why we'll continue to see more teams trying to lock up their good young players coming out of their ELC, rather than bridging them, or worse, signing them for 5 years. I think that even 6 years is too short for players that are top end and 21-22 years old. Better to try to lock them in for 7-8 years, if possible.

He sat out training camp because we were trying to offer him a short deal on his last contract. We tried, but it got to the point where he held the cards because GM knew how good he was

 

[NHLNUT04]

Stars sign Jamie Benn to eight-year contract extension

Nice Deal!

 

[Regal]

Benn is a good example of why you don't sign very promising young players to 5 year deals when they are 22 or 23. They would have been much better to lock him up for 7-8 years at a higher cap hit. Having him at say $6M or $6.2M until he is 30 or 31 would have been ideal. You can still re-sign him then if he's still playing at a high end, but you would get him for a shorter term and much lower AAV when he's in his 30's.

I think that's why we'll continue to see more teams trying to lock up their good young players coming out of their ELC, rather than bridging them, or worse, signing them for 5 years. I think that even 6 years is too short for players that are top end and 21-22 years old. Better to try to lock them in for 7-8 years, if possible.

Disagree. Everyone's obsessed with being able to underpay players, but there's nothing wrong with paying market value, particularly with star players if it helps negate future bad deals. Benn just turned 27 and is still on his 5.25 million deal for this year. So this deal will start at his age 28 season and end at his age 35 season. The mid 30s is usually hit and miss for players but it's pretty common for stars to be still top liners up until then. So the deal eats up basically the rest of his prime years and maybe one or two post-prime years at what should be a reasonable cost. Then at 35 he won't be a highly coveted free agent at that age and with the age 35 rule so it would likely be easy to re-sign him at that time if they want him, likely for a short deal. If he signed a cheaper deal initially until he was 30 or 31, it'd be great for another couple years, but then you're looking at re-signing him starting at his age 31 or 32 season. He'd likely still be a star and highly sought after and require a 7-8 year deal by then, but probably will only have a couple years at that level left. That means more years past age 35 at high dollars and a higher likelihood of him not fulfilling the deal in the final few years, or walking away from him while he's still in his prime.

 

[Regal]

I think a better label is PF+. You're not just getting a typical star power forward, you're getting an elite player that happens to fit the mold of a power forward.

Iginla would be a good comparable.

 

[LT]

Iginla would be a good comparable.

Agreed, but only in terms of how they're viewed around the league and their career arcs. Stat-lines are probably going to be roughly similar, as well.

Their play has some parallels, but their games revolve around different aspects. Both are worthy of the "power-forward plus" label, though.