Avalanche defenseman Brent Burns made his NHL debut on\u00a0October 8, 2003. Since then,\u00a0he\u2019s\u00a0reached the\u00a0200-goal, 600-assist and 900-point milestones,\u00a0won a Norris\u00a0Trophy\u00a0and played over 1,500 NHL games. On Saturday, he became the first defenseman and second player (Phil Kessel) in NHL history to play in 1,000\u00a0consecutive regular-season games.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
Burns said he\u00a0wasn\u2019t\u00a0thinking about this milestone\u00a0until about\u00a020-to-30\u00a0games\u00a0ago, but\u00a0called it a special one.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cI think it\u2019s nice,\u201d Burns said. \u201cYou start to think about those things and\u00a0all the\u00a0things\u00a0people sacrifice along the way, and yourself, too. I think you\u00a0can\u2019t\u00a0help but\u00a0think about those things. 1,000 is always big\u00a0in this league. I think when you start coming up on this one,\u00a0I never really thought about it, to be honest, until\u00a0maybe 20-30\u00a0games [ago], because\u00a0I\u2019ve\u00a0always said, it takes so much luck.\u00a0That\u2019s\u00a0why I\u00a0don\u2019t\u00a0even like talking about it.\u00a0There\u2019s\u00a0just so many times that things happen in the game, [it\u2019s]\u00a0so fast.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
Avalanche Head Coach Jared Bednar said\u00a0he\u2019s\u00a0amazed at Burns\u2019 streak\u00a0and his consistency on the ice.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cHe’s still producing\u00a0offensively,\u201d Bednar said after Colorado\u2019s game on Monday. \u201cHe\u2019s\u00a0still a rock-solid defender. He still plays\u00a0[physically].\u00a0It\u2019s\u00a0the same guy\u00a0you\u2019ve\u00a0been watching\u00a0a decade-plus, doing the exact same thing and still playing.\u00a0Could\u00a0you imagine all the injuries?\u00a0I\u2019d\u00a0love to sit down with\u00a0him and talk to him and just\u00a0[talk about]\u00a0all the injuries\u00a0he\u2019s\u00a0played through that\u00a0probably puts\u00a0other guys out for weeks, months. And he just plays through them like\u00a0it’s\u00a0not a big deal.\u00a0It\u2019s\u00a0an incredible accomplishment.\u00a0It\u2019s\u00a0hard to believe.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
On Friday,\u00a0Bednar continued his praise of Burns\u00a0being on the verge of\u00a0achieving this historic feat.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cThese types of milestones, like ones like this, really\u00a0amaze\u00a0me,\u201d Bednar said. \u201cPlayers getting points\u2014I think you\u00a0see skilled players, and you watch them develop. And they start racking up points, and everyone just assumes you can\u00a0go on\u00a0forever.\u00a0So\u00a0they hit certain milestones, and\u00a0they\u2019re\u00a0more common. This one is\u00a0pretty crazy. When you think about how hard it is to play one game in this league, and even when\u00a0you\u2019re\u00a0a really\u00a0good player, how hard it is to stay healthy in this league and be able to play 1,000 straight games is crazy to me.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
To put his incredible streak into perspective,\u00a0Burns\u2019 streak began\u00a0on\u00a0November 21, 2013,\u00a04,517 days\u00a0ago. On that day,\u00a0Nathan MacKinnon played in his 21st\u00a0NHL game,\u00a0Cale Makar\u00a0was 15 years old, Martin Necas was 14 and Bednar was\u00a0an assistant coach for the AHL\u2019s Springfield Falcons.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
When Burns hits the ice in Dallas on Saturday,\u00a0he\u2019ll\u00a0achieve yet another incredible\u00a0milestone in an incredible career filled with consistency and longevity.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Avalanche defenseman Brent Burns made his NHL debut on\u00a0October 8, 2003. Since then,\u00a0he\u2019s\u00a0reached the\u00a0200-goal, 600-assist and 900-point milestones,\u00a0won…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":540800,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5116],"tags":[193,192,144,5277,5,4],"class_list":{"0":"post-540799","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-colorado-avalanche","8":"tag-avalanche","9":"tag-colorado","10":"tag-colorado-avalanche","11":"tag-coloradoavalanche","12":"tag-hockey","13":"tag-nhl"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nhl\/116348140347779486","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/540799","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=540799"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/540799\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/540800"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=540799"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=540799"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=540799"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}