This season was one of the most important seasons of the
Stars Captain’s career.
Jamie Benn was drafted 13th overall by the
Nashville Predators in the 2015 entry draft. His career in Nashville was very
short lived and he was moved to St. Louis where he played 4 seasons. In his 19-year-old
season he had 31 goals, and 64-points which caused his value to skyrocket.
Eventually he was dealt to the Stars as a 22-year-old. There have been some ups
in his time for Dallas, he has been in the playoffs 2 times and was promoted to
captain at 26 years young which was just his 5th season with the
team. He stuck with the team through many difficult seasons where Dallas didn’t
compete. Recently he has been the main reason for the successful development in
guys like Jesperi Kotkaniemi, Clayton Keller, and Timothy Liljegren. But with
all that being said he never has been the top point getter that the Stars organization
thought they were getting. Last season GM Smedley made it known Jamie has to
prove to him he is worth an extension and that he shouldn’t get traded. That is
exactly what he did with a 72-point season that brought a new challenge, breaking
franchise records. Today with 7 minutes left in the 3rd period he
assisted on the goal to take the lead; this marked his 531st point
as a Star which breaks the franchise record. The bench emptied, 13,000 people went
nuclear as the lights dimmed and the jumbotron showed a montage of his career
thus far with Dallas.
After the game GM Smedley made a deal with the Rangers. He
noticed the terrible play from Rickard Rakell and Lapierre in the farm. So this
deal transpired:
To Dallas: Zach Senyshyn, Nikita Chibrikov
To New York Rangers: Rickard Rakell, Hendrix Lapierre
Here’s what GM Smedley had to say, “Hurts letting go of
these 2, especially Rakell who was my first ever acquisition and has played a
significant role with the team as well, at least Rickard left with a goal in
his last game. Getting rid of Lapierre who was my 2nd draft pick
also hurt. but we got a great skating RW that’s 5 years younger in Senyshyn and
Chibrikov is just 18 but playing very well in the farm.”
After todays 3-1 win against the Islanders the Stars have 2 days
off before a difficult stretch which will test them tremendously.
3/29/2022 - 385 words
