Veteran defenceman Jordie Benn signed a contract with the Minnesota Wild earlier Friday afternoon. This one-year, $900,000 contract carries him through the end of the 2021-22 season.
Welcome, Jordie!
The #mnwild has signed defenseman Jordie Benn to a one-year, $900,000 contract.
🗞 » https://t.co/dJQbO82yjC pic.twitter.com/mWAlXJyPdf
— Minnesota Wild (@mnwild) August 27, 2021
Jordie Benn Signed by Minnesota Wild
The left-shooting defenceman has seen quite a few NHL games in his long career. He’s played for four teams and racked up over 550 games in his 10 seasons. In those games, he’s scored 24 times and created 103 assists for 127 points. Not the most offensively talented defenceman, his stronger suit is on the defensive side of the puck. However, even those numbers are not the greatest. Only registering 51 blocks over two teams last season, and playing an average of fewer than 15 minutes a game, it’s obvious his skillset is not what it used to be. His advanced numbers don’t help his cause. He does not have a season with a Relative Corsi above -1.7 and his only Corsi For percentage above 50% was in the 2014-15 season.
Outlook for the Wild
With Jordie Benn signed, the Wild now have a very deep blue line. Already a defensive-minded team, players like Jonas Brodin, Alex Goligoski, Matt Dumba, and Jared Spurgeon make up a strong defensive core. With Benn in the lineup, it gives them a solid NHL calibre defenceman to put on the third pairing. However, this move is still a little confusing. At age 34, it seems unlikely he will have a spectacular bounceback season. It’s understandable that the Wild want a defenceman that is proven at an NHL level, but it seems strange that they went after Benn.
In a Central Division that doesn’t seem too tough this upcoming year, the Wild could have tried to trade for a more capable defenceman. Instead, they went after an old and rapidly declining defenceman. As the season gets underway, it will be obvious whether this signing worked out in Minnesota’s favour.
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