Bag of Pucks - Feb 26

There is nothing more enjoyable as a fan than to see a player grow up before your very eyes.  And in the last 4 years we have had the chance in Dallas to witness the growth of Jamie Benn at a rapid pace and seemingly on the elevator to greatness.

This week was clearly no exception as he had a very memorable stretch of games, including one of those nights - on Saturday against San Jose - that might help define his career.

I am not sure when the Stars will be looking for a new captain - 3 months from now or 3 years? - but, when they do have to replace Brenden Morrow as the man who wears the "C" for this franchise, it seems that #14 is growing into the role.

Captain is sometimes a difficult term to define, especially in these days where it seems organizations have changed their focus on who is given the responsibility.  In the past, it seems that captain was a spot that was earned by years of showing the character and determination of a player who was the heart and soul of the squad.  The player who would demand more from his mates and would never take a night off because he didn't quite feel it.  Now days, as salaries have escalated and produced more divides in the dressing room, it seems teams try to put the captaincy on their highest paid player as a challenge to him to not be about personal achievement, but team goals first.

A few months ago, I wasn't sure Jamie is up for the spot.  That might be more of my fault than anything he has done in the last several games, but he doesn't seem comfortable in front of a microphone and part of being captain should be speaking for the team when everyone else hides from the camera.  That is one of Morrow's finest traits as captain.  No matter how badly the night goes, he never hides from the questions that need to be answered.  Benn can figure that part out.

But, one of the issues about having a special player with special talents is whether he can handle being a leader of men.  And part of that is the ability to drag the team into a game that they might not always be up for.  The other is to fight valiantly for the puck when he is being challenged physically.  And that is the thread of his DNA I really enjoy.

Benn doesn't back down to a challenge.  In fact, he has a fuse that can be lit very easily and it makes him extremely competitive.  He doesn't shy from a challenge from the opponents, but rather feeds off it.  He wants contact and wants to give it back.  He is not as nuts as some at this (young Jeremy Roenick in Chicago is one of the best examples) where he seeks a big hit, fight, or scrum if the game needs it, just as much as he might go looking for a goal or an assist.

He is a large man who wants to mix it up.  Someday, we might all regret that if he suffers some of the injuries young Roenick did because of his fuse, but for now, Benn looks like a guy who can be counted upon to lead his team into battle on a lot of nights.  And that, is what we call a captain.

As much as we all love Mike Modano, that is why I always found it curious to make him the captain.  Sure, he was the man with the most authority in the room and he was also as tough as nails, but he was not the type of guy to finish whatever has been started physically out there on the ice.  Said another way, if he was challenged to a scrap, he would skate away and let someone else step in.  And by the way, there is nothing wrong with that at all.  Almost every elite offensive player does the same thing.  I just never fully understood making those guys captains because they generally step aside when a game turns into a war.

But, that is what might make Benn an amazing specimen.  Is he the type that can lead the team in scoring and still have a message sent around the league that if you mess with him, you might prepare to deal with him personally.  And don't think for a second that every guy on the bench doesn't watch that and admire it.  They see the best player on the ice ready to mix it up and that is a personal challenge to every man wearing the same jersey.

Which leads us to Saturday's game of greatness.  Jumbo Joe Thornton and Benn had something going that appeared to involve sticks into various sensitive areas on each-other's mid-sections, and neither seemed willing to back down.  When 6'4, 230 and 6'2, 210 meet in a battle, with fists and hair flying everywhere, the arena goes nuts.  Because those are the two most talented men on the ice and they are ready to make a statement at the other's expense.  The game jumped several levels of intensity at that moment in time, and when the penalties expired and each man returned to his bench, every player saluted the statement with banging sticks and respect.

Then, the game kept escalating.  Benn continued to play his style of being a bull in a china shop who the opponents cannot knock off the puck very often.  Together with Jaromir Jagr and Morrow on his line, he played a determined game all night and added a perfect assist on Jagr's goal and then slammed the door shut on a desperate Sharks' team with a goal moments after big Douglas Murray tried to send him to the ice.  Benn bounced off him and stayed on his feet, received the puck, and scored the dagger through traffic.  And there it was, the Gordie Howe hat-trick.



The Gordie Howe hat trick is a stat that has not been kept too long in the NHL.  It goes back officially to 1996, although it is still not really official.  Brenden Shanahan is the career GHHT leader with 17 all-time and Howe himself only had 2.

It could be called over-rated or even something that doesn't matter as much as some would argue, but I would counter by saying Benn controlled Saturday's victory because he was able to perform all 3 of those check-marks with great ease.  Every single phase mattered in that win, and although they are not always that significant, it does seem to argue that the player involved - if even for one night - is capable of contributing to the offense of the team and able to mix it up with the opponent.  Sergei Zubov or Brett Hull are not going to get one of these, because they aren't dropping their mitts.

And they are fine with that.

Here is the all-time Dallas Stars Gordie Howe Hat-Trick Registry:

Dave Barr	at Edmonton	11/19/93
Dave Gagner	vs NYR	2/26/94
Grant Marshall	At St Louis	11/21/98
Brenden Morrow	At Phoenix	2/3/00
Brenden Morrow	vs Minnesota	2/21/01
Bill Guerin	vs Anaheim	10/11/02
Brenden Morrow	vs Los Angeles	1/7/03
Brenden Morrow	vs Nashville	11/2/03
Shayne Corson	vs San Jose	3/7/04
Brenden Morrow	vs Phoenix	1/23/06
Brenden Dillon	vs Phoenix	2/1/13
Jamie Benn	vs San Jose	2/23/13

Perhaps, that list makes you appreciate what a force of nature Brenden Morrow has been around here for so long.  It is easy to live in the present tense and to evaluate what a player looks like right now.  Admittedly, Morrow doesn't look like he once did, but let's not forget how great he has been in so many regards for the Stars for so long.

Morrow is 4th in games, 3rd in goals (about to be 2nd when he passes Jere Lehtinen with 3 more), 3rd in assists, 3rd in points (Zubov is in range in 2nd), 2nd in power play goals, 1st in penalty minutes, and 2nd in game winning goals.  There is no question that he is slowing down, but what a career for Morrow.

It will be interesting to see how the Stars figure out his future this summer when he is a free agent, but perhaps we have not heard the end of the the captain.  Father Time waits for no man, but when Morrow's time is up, they appear to know who their next captain will be.

GOAL OF THE WEEK

We already did the fight of the week, and keeping with the goal of the week, I have no problem keeping it in the Dallas Stars' family.  This one is also going to Mr. Benn, as his opening shift against Vancouver on Thursday night was pretty silly, too.

Take a look:



Good gracious.

Plenty of more talking points from the Monday night in Nashville, including my curiosity about Stephane Robidas' rib cage after his unfortunate run-in with the door on the Predators' bench, but everything else will have to wait until our next version.

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The Jamie Benn Extension

Team executives in our major sports negotiate contracts all of the time and therefore see all sorts of scenarios.  But, the rarest of them all is when they have a mountain of money and want to give it to a player, only to find out that his camp is somewhat reluctant to accept it.

That appears to be the situation here, 72 hours before opening night in the NHL, as the Dallas Stars and Jamie Benn are trying to sort out his contract situation while getting the club ready to play Saturday night with or without him.

There is very little question how they feel about him.  They have showered him with praise and adoration for a few years now, pledging their allegiance and their future to Benn.  Surely, if there was any interest in low-balling him when it was time to "Pay that man his money", they would have picked a real odd strategy in the press.

Sources suggest that the Stars have been willing to go to some pretty high neighborhoods in money to get a deal done, and are willing to stretch his term out at least to 6-years, and if the deal suits the Benn side, perhaps as far as the new Collective Bargaining Agreement will allow (8-years if resigning with your team).

The comparable contracts that have been signed for franchise-level players around the league who are still in the infancy of their NHL careers are plentiful.  Everywhere you look, quality kids - some the legal drinking age, some not - are being locked down and paid handsomely.  It is believed that the Stars would not feel that Benn is out of his depths in discussing a deal similar to many of the following:

Tyler Seguin signed a 6-year, $34.5m extension last summer through 2019.  He is 21 years old next week.

Taylor Hall: 7 years, $42m through 2020.  Hall is 21.

Jordan Eberle:  6/$36m through 2019.  Eberle is 21.

John Tavares has a slightly older deal: 6/$33m through 2018 and he is 22.

Evander Kane also is 1 year into his 6/$31.5 through 2018 and is 21.

They all seem in the same basic area, $5m-$6m a year, and in many cases getting them to free agency and their next giant payday when they are 27 or eligible for free agency (7 seasons in the NHL).

Benn is 23 and has played 3 years in the NHL, and therefore has 4 seasons left committed to the league pay-scale before he will taste the freedom of unrestricted free agency.

So, if he would like the 6 year plan, then he wouldn't become "free" again until he was 29.  And, 27 year olds do break the bank more than 29 year olds if we want to assume he is looking to be the belle of his ball when he becomes free (which would make him a normal player after seeing Ryan Suter and Zach Parise this summer).

So, what is the Benn side looking for?  That appears to be the subject of some level of speculation for all involved.  Efforts to speak directly with Benn's agent, Richard Evans, have not been successful, but the process has allowed for certain conclusions to be reached.

Either they want a shorter deal to get to free agency on July 1, 2016, or they want enough annual cash to be willing to wait on free agency.

And that is where the Stars have to decide how to deal with this.  If Benn wants shorter term, then he needs to be willing to take shorter term money.  For instance, Matt Duchene in Colorado signed one of those smaller 2/$7m "bridge contracts" that help a player move up from Entry level money without sacrificing much on arbitration or the substantial cash unrestricted free agency could bring.

Loui Eriksson signed a deal that he is now in the 3rd year of enjoying, a 6-year/$25.5m deal that will take him to age 31.  That deal of $4.25m a year is below what Benn would be worth by a good margin, but it does show us along with the Kari Lehtonen deal (5 years/$29.5m, age 29) the marriage between value and age.

I am guessing here, but if I were to guess the position of Tom Gaglardi and the Stars, it probably looks like this:  If you want security, you can have it at about a million dollars per year.  For instance, 5 years would get $5m a year and 6 years, $6m a year.  I do assume that 7 years would top out at Taylor Hall's deal (see above), but who knows?  I just am pretty sure they wouldn't give him Matt Duchene's term (2 years), but Tyler Seguin's cash (nearly $6m per).

And it is this give and take which have the Stars in the very unenviable position of perhaps disappointing their fan base (yet again) with the prospect of not having their franchise player around for opening night on Saturday.  This will bring out accusations of being cheap and the same ol bankrupt Stars, but I don't believe that is the case.  I think the Stars would love nothing more than to have Benn locked up and secure through 2019 as their centerpiece center, and move on to trying to break their playoff drought.

However, Evans and Benn might see leverage completely on their side, because it is.  If this does go into the season,  the Stars will lose in the court of public opinion, because nobody has patience for a money dispute between owner and player after enduring the larger money dispute between owners and players of the last 4 months.

If Evans and Benn decide to sit out the first few games to gain leverage, this gets uglier.  Each game is vital and every day is meaningful.  They need Benn badly, for his skill level, but also with the close proximity of games, they need their young 23-year old stud to drag the 2nd oldest team in hockey (only New Jersey is older than the Stars average age of 29.53) around the ice on some nights.  But, you can see how Evans might project how a 0-3 start would earn his client more cash in a panicked negotiation once a week passes.  But, what is the point of sabotaging your own squad that you have to return to if you are not actually being low-balled?

Nobody believes the idea that Benn wants out.  All indicators are that he loves Dallas and the organization and sees the future here.  So, to this point, nobody sees this as a play to get Benn out of here and to a city of his choosing.  So, can calm the panic on that front.

But, as of right now, it appears the Stars have a wheelbarrow of cash waiting for #14 that compares to any of the other young stars in the league who want big dollars with little service time.  They want to hop in with Benn for the long-term and are ambitious to do so.

Benn's side has been quiet to this point, leaving some tone of confusion and mystery to the motives in British Columbia.

This seems to not be that complicated.  And what amounts to an abbreviated training camp is going on without their most important player.

At least in the lockout, we saw the players wanted more and the owners wanted to give less.  This odd negotiation might be just the opposite.  The team wants to give more than the player might be willing to take - with Benn/Evans betting, of course, that untold riches might await in the summer of 2016.

In a violent sport, it is a risky play.  Especially if the bird in the hand is a giant, over-stuffed $6m-per-year bird.

So, if you are wondering why Jamie Benn might not be in uniform on Saturday night, don't worry;
The Stars are probably wondering the exact same thing.

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