Stars' Benn (collapsed lung) out at least 4 weeks

Dallas Stars skipper and near winger Jamie Benn volition miss astatine slightest 4 weeks aft having country connected a collapsed lung, the squad announced Thursday.

The 36-year-old was diagnosed with the wounded connected Tuesday successful the 3rd play of the Stars' preseason crippled against the Minnesota Wild. Benn logged 15:47 of crystal clip successful the Stars' 3-2 overtime win.

Benn is expected to marque a afloat betterment and volition beryllium evaluated by the squad successful 4 weeks, the Stars said.

Losing Benn for astatine slightest 4 weeks means he'll miss the remainder of the Stars' preseason and could beryllium retired for astatine slightest the archetypal 7 regular-season games. Five of the Stars' archetypal 7 games volition beryllium against teams that made the playoffs past season. Should the archetypal timeline hold, helium could perchance marque his play debut Oct. 25 against the Carolina Hurricanes.

Benn is entering his 17th play with the lone NHL franchise helium has ever known. He finished with 16 goals and 49 points successful 80 games for the Stars successful a 2024-25 run that saw the nine suffer successful the Western Conference last for a 3rd consecutive year.

Last play besides meant Benn was successful the last twelvemonth of an eight-year contract, lone to instrumentality connected a one-year woody worthy $1 cardinal to springiness the Stars a venerable top-nine guardant for a squad that present has overmuch of its headdress abstraction invested successful halfway players specified arsenic Miro Heiskanen, Wyatt Johnston, Jake Oettinger, Mikko Rantanen and Jason Robertson.

Prior to the injury, Benn has been connected the 3rd enactment successful preseason alongside Matt Duchene and Tyler Seguin. It present leaves an opening successful the Stars top-nine guardant group.

In summation to the Stars challenging for the Stanley Cup, this twelvemonth was besides acceptable to beryllium 1 successful which Benn could scope a fistful of idiosyncratic milestones. He's a extremity distant from 400 successful his career, 8 games distant from reaching 1,200 and is besides 44 points shy of scoring 1,000 for his career.