Brent Burns played his third career game against Joe Sakic, Peter Forsberg, Adam Foote, Paul Kariya, Teemu Selanne, Rob Blake, and the rest of the 2003-04 Colorado Avalanche.
Fast-forward 22 years, and he’s one shift away from becoming the 23rd player in NHL history to reach 1,500 regular-season games. Something that neither of those legends has accomplished.
“Those are the guys that I looked up to when I was a kid, those are the guys that I loved,” Burns said on Friday, on the eve of his 1,500th game against the Dallas Stars at Ball Arena. “To see some of them walking around here now, it’s pretty cool.”
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Burns is riding an active Iron Man streak of 926 games, the most by far among current players. He’s got the eighth-highest games played among NHL defenseman in history and is chasing down both Ryan Suter and Nicklas Lidstrom during this season.
What separates the 40-year-old Burns from other veterans is his ability to still play a big role on Stanley Cup contending teams. Burns was traded from San Jose to Carolina after missing the playoffs in three straight seasons.
With the Hurricanes, he instantly became a top pair defenseman, spending a lot of time with Jaccob Slavin, while also quarterbacking of the top power-play unit for one of the contenders in the East.
After three years with Carolina, he joined Colorado to round out their bottom two pairs on the blueline.
The Avs, for years, have deployed a second pair of Josh Manson and Samuel Girard. Those guys are often atop the time on ice list on the back end after Cale Makar and Devon Toews.
But Burns isn’t just another veteran with longevity. He’s not here to play 10 minutes on the third just to extend his storied career. He isn’t playing a limited role like Zach Parise did in 2024, or Jack Johnson when he was here.
He’s playing on the second pair, he’s the QB for the second power-play unit, and he’s a big piece of Colorado’s penalty kill.
All of that has amounted to a 22-year veteran with nearly 1,000 consecutive games played and, at 40 years old, being the Avalanche’s third most-used defenseman through two games.
Being able to do that, and do it well, considerably elevates what it means to play 1,500 games in this league.
Burns has averaged 20:49 through two games thus far.
“It’s not easy to do, and in a new system as well. New terminology, new breakouts, new everything,” captain Gabe Landeskog said of his new teammate. “But he’s found a way to come in and just kind of take it in stride.”
It’s no question the Avalanche think highly of Burns.
“We’re gonna need him. We’re gonna lean on him with how he plays the game and how hard he is to play against in the D zone,” Landeskog said. “I mean, that’s going to be huge for us coming down the stretch and into the depths of the season here.”
The forward turned defenseman has been through quite a lot since his debut. Aside from making the switch to becoming a winger, then back to defense, he’s also been to a Stanley Cup Final in 2016, which ended in a loss to the Pittsburgh Penguins.
He’s been to the conference finals twice with Carolina and one other time with San Jose in 2019. He’s yet to win the Stanley Cup, and it’s perhaps the one thing that’s missing from his resume.
His first taste of playoff action was a five-game series loss with Minnesota in 2007, where he played a limited role. The next year, Burns became a huge piece of their blueline and played over 27 minutes per game in a six game series loss to the 2008 Avs.
In that series, he got to play against one of his childhood idols in Forsberg.
“I think you try to enjoy these things a little bit,” Burns said. “Just think back to some of the good times and then the funny times. There’s a lot of luck to still be here. I’m grateful.”
