Avalanche defenseman Brent Burns made his NHL debut on October 8, 2003. Since then, he’s reached the 200-goal, 600-assist and 900-point milestones, won a Norris Trophy and 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 consecutive regular-season games.
Burns said he wasn’t thinking about this milestone until about 20-to-30 games ago, but called it a special one.
“I think it’s nice,” Burns said. “You start to think about those things and all the things people sacrifice along the way, and yourself, too. I think you can’t help but think about those things. 1,000 is always big in this league. I think when you start coming up on this one, I never really thought about it, to be honest, until maybe 20-30 games [ago], because I’ve always said, it takes so much luck. That’s why I don’t even like talking about it. There’s just so many times that things happen in the game, [it’s] so fast.”
Avalanche Head Coach Jared Bednar said he’s amazed at Burns’ streak and his consistency on the ice.
“He's still producing offensively,” Bednar said after Colorado’s game on Monday. “He’s still a rock-solid defender. He still plays [physically]. It’s the same guy you’ve been watching a decade-plus, doing the exact same thing and still playing. Could you imagine all the injuries? I’d love to sit down with him and talk to him and just [talk about] all the injuries he’s played through that probably puts other guys out for weeks, months. And he just plays through them like it's not a big deal. It’s an incredible accomplishment. It’s hard to believe.”
On Friday, Bednar continued his praise of Burns being on the verge of achieving this historic feat.
“These types of milestones, like ones like this, really amaze me,” Bednar said. “Players getting points—I think you see skilled players, and you watch them develop. And they start racking up points, and everyone just assumes you can go on forever. So they hit certain milestones, and they’re more common. This one is pretty crazy. When you think about how hard it is to play one game in this league, and even when you’re a really good player, how hard it is to stay healthy in this league and be able to play 1,000 straight games is crazy to me.”
To put his incredible streak into perspective, Burns’ streak began on November 21, 2013, 4,517 days ago. On that day, Nathan MacKinnon played in his 21st NHL game, Cale Makar was 15 years old, Martin Necas was 14 and Bednar was an assistant coach for the AHL’s Springfield Falcons.
When Burns hit the ice in Dallas on Saturday, he achieved yet another incredible milestone in an incredible career filled with consistency and longevity.
