The Colorado Avalanche has added another Norris Trophy winner to its defense corps.
Colorado signed Brent Burns to a one-year contract, the club announced Wednesday night. The contract is for $1 million in base salary, with up to $3 million in additional bonuses Burns can attain, according to a report from Sportsnet’s Elliotte Friedman.
Burns, who will turn 41 years old in March, has played the past three season with the Carolina Hurricanes after a run of more than a decade as one of the best defensemen in the sport with the San Jose Sharks.
The 2017 Norris Trophy winner had six goals and 29 points in 82 games for the Hurricanes last year. Despite being one of the oldest players in the league, he still logged more than 20 minutes per game for a Stanley Cup contender.
Burns, who remains one of the best defensemen in the league at getting shots from the point on net, has also been an ironman in his career. He has played 925 games in a row since Nov. 2013.
Listed at 6-foot-5 and 228 pounds, Burns adds the size Colorado was looking for to round out its defense corps, but adding him also gives the club four right-handed shooters — Cale Makar, Josh Manson, Sam Malinski and Burns — among its six best defensemen.
Signing Burns to a bonus-laden contract gives the Avalanche some flexibility about when the rest of his deal beyond the $1 million base will count against the club’s salary cap. If Colorado has enough space left over at the end of this season, the bonuses Burns earns will count against the 2025-26 cap. If the Avs do not, they can push those bonuses to the 2026-27 cap as an overage.
Burns has been one of the best conditioned athletes in the NHL for much of his career. He has averaged more than 23 minutes per contest 11 times in his career, even as recently as 2022-23 during his age-37 season.
Selected by Minnesota in the 2003 NHL draft, he has 1,497 career games played. That’s 24th all time and second among active players behind Ryan Suter, a fellow member of the 2003 draft class.
Burns began his NHL career as a right wing with the Wild before moving to defense. He went back to the wing for one season with the Sharks, but evolved into the one of the best defensemen of the 2010s after fulling committing to the position. He is a three-time Norris finalist, winning in 2017 after scoring a career-high 29 goals to go along with 76 points.
Burns reached the Stanley Cup Final in 2016, but is one of the most accomplished active players to have never won a championship. He has appeared in 135 Stanley Cup Playoff games, including 41 in the past three seasons with the Hurricanes.
Affectionately nicknamed “Wookie” because of his voluminous beard, Burns once adorned a Chewbacca mask during an NHL All-Star Game’s skills competition. He is also an avid outdoorsman, owning a large ranch in Texas where and his kids hunt, harvest and cook in a woods-to-table environment.
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