At age 41, Barrie native Brent Burns is not ready to hang up the skates just yet.
The veteran NHL defenceman re-signed with the Colorado Avalanche on Friday on a one-year, $850,000 contract, pushing his career in the league to a 23rd season.
Only 13 other players in the league's history have had a career that long, and Burns has made the most of it so far, not missing a game since November 2013.
His 1,007 consecutive regular season contests put him just 57 away from matching Phil Kessel's "Iron Man" record set in April 2023. They are the only two players to skate in 1,000 or more consecutive games.
He is also the NHL's active leader in games played at 1,579, ranking 14th all-time.
Further, the upcoming season will represent another crack at a Stanley Cup title that’s eluded him, and doing so on a team that won the President's Trophy last season when Burns had an impact as a powerful leader in the locker room and a reliable player on the ice.
His closest chance at a Stanley Cup win was in 2016 with San Jose, which lost to Pittsburgh in six games in what was the franchise's first-ever conference championship-winning season.
Burns has experienced glory with Canada's men's national ice hockey team, however, winning the IIHF World Championship in 2015 and the World Cup of Hockey a year later.
In his first year in Denver, he scored 12 goals and 35 points while setting a career high as a +33 player
In the Stanley Cup Playoffs, the Avalanche got swept by Vegas in the Western Conference Final, but in the team's 13-game playoff run Burns was +9 while logging four assists.
The one-time Norris Trophy winner is set to earn the veteran minimum of $850,000 and can make up to $3 million in incentives, according to a person familiar with the deal. The person spoke to The Associated Press on condition of anonymity because financial terms were not disclosed.
— with files from the Associated Press
