The Colorado Avalanche have signed defenseman Brent Burns to a one-year contract. According to Elliotte Friedman, the contract has a $1 million base and has games-played bonuses of up to $3 million.

Burns has been the anti-Band Aid Boy, having not missed a game since the 2014-15 season. During the prime of his career, Burns was a multicategory beast for his ability to rack up both points and shots on goal. At one time, he even maintained eligibility as a defenseman while playing as a winger!  

Even if Burns' high-event style of play hasn't affected him in terms of games missed, age has caught up in terms of his ability to generate offense. Now 40 years old, Burns picked up just 29 points, including only three power-play points with the Hurricanes in 2024-25.

It is fantastic that Burns is continuing his career for at least one more season. However, he will need more than one season to break Phil Kessel's consecutive games played record. In addition to that, Burns will need to prove that he is not just being rostered on a nightly basis to break the record. Burns averaged 20:57 in 2024-25, which is well below the 26 minutes he averaged about 4-5 years ago, but still about what a middle-pair defenseman would receive. At the moment, it appears he would fit in on Colorado's third pair.

This is a situation where Burns could be left in the cold completely when it comes to power-play time. Burns won't receive a sniff of PP1 with Cale Makar there. That leaves Devon Toews and Samuel Girard as competition on the second unit. Since Toews registered just 3 PPP and Girard just 1 PPP in 2024-25 with each playing 70+ games, Burns could theoretically push one of those two out. Both Toews and Girard averaged less than 25% of the Avs' available power-play minutes, so we're talking about fighting for leftovers on Colorado's second power-play unit.

At this point, Burns can probably be ignored in most shallow to mid-sized leagues. Since his cap hit will plummet from $8 million to $1 million, he could continue to be rostered in salary cap leagues.

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Players this helps, in order:

No one in particular

Players this hurts, in order:

Toews

Girard

Burns

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Discuss the Burns signing in this thread on the Forum.