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# The One Guy I Want to See Get His Name on It
- URL: https://www.keeganthecaniac.com/the-one-guy-i-want-to-see-get-his-name-on-it/
- Published: 2026-07-29T07:18:24.000Z
- Updated: 2026-07-29T07:18:24.000Z
- Author: Keegan

Brent Burns spent three years here. Then he signed in Colorado to chase a Cup. And the team he left won it the next season.

I have thought about that a lot since June.

I don't know how you process that as a player. He went to Colorado specifically because there was one thing left he hadn't done, said as much when he signed, that there's still something to chase and he's got one big goal left. Then he watched Raleigh throw a parade.

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So now he's 41, going into his 23rd season, and he still doesn't have it.

Here's the part that gets me though. It's not really about Burns.

He is the last man standing from that Sharks core. Couture, Marleau, Pavelski, Thornton, Vlasic, Paul Martin. That group was one of the best in hockey for a decade, went to the Final in 2016, and not a single one of them ever won a Stanley Cup. All of them are done now. He's the only one still playing.

And he has said out loud that he's chasing it for them too. That they all still talk, that it would mean something to that whole group, not just to him. I don't know, that broke me a little. A guy in his forties still going to the rink every day partly on behalf of a bunch of retired friends who ran out of time.

The durability is its own thing. Something like 1,700 games between the regular season and playoffs. Five straight years without missing a single one, and now they've gone to 84 games, so he's going to try to do it again at 41\. MacKinnon says he sleeps like a bear, naps in the afternoon and then goes down for ten more hours. Whatever he's doing, it's working, and it's been working for over twenty years.

He's got a Norris. He's got World Cup gold. He's got basically everything a defenseman can get except the only one that actually matters to him.

Colorado lost in the Conference Final last spring. Some of them are getting old, they know it, and they're going for it again this year. Makar and Toews will do the heavy lifting and Burns will do whatever they need him to do, which at this point is a supporting role, and by all accounts he's completely fine with that.

I want it for him. I'm not going to pretend I'll be rooting for Colorado in April, because I won't, we have our own thing going. But if we're not the ones lifting it, and they hand it to a 42 year old with a beard you can see from space who has been at this since 2003, I'm going to be genuinely happy about it.

He was one of ours for three years. He deserved better timing than he got.

Go Canes. And go Burnsy.