Burnside: Burns' Experience & Impact In His First Season With The Canes

RALEIGH, NC. -There has for a long time been something larger than life about Brent Burns.
Maybe it's the shaggy visage and the gap-toothed smile - or snarl depending on the circumstance - affixed to the imposing 6-foot-5 frame.
Maybe it's the outside-the-box approach to life. His penchant for wild game, exotic pets, and big motor homes in which he and his wife and three children have crisscrossed the continent.

I once covered an NHL Awards event in Las Vegas and looked out my hotel window on the strip and saw a giant motor home literally plugged into the big neon sign announcing the casino/resort. It belonged to Burns and his family. It was perfect.
But in the quiet of the Carolina Hurricanes dressing room, there is more introspection than swagger, more vulnerability than attitude, and nothing that would be remotely construed as ego during a conversation with the talented defender.
In fact, on the day of our conversation, Burns was lamenting a botched drill at practice the previous day and the not necessarily straight-line evolution of becoming a Hurricane after he agreed to waive his no-trade clause and leave San Jose after 11 seasons.
"I knew it was going to be a big change," Burns, 37, said. "You know, I think it just brings you back to a time when you're nervous for practice, you're nervous to do things right. You're trying to learn a lot of new things. New people. A little bit quieter here, not stepping on toes. It's very different. I knew it was going to be a lot of change."
In some ways, it feels as though Burns is talking to himself as much as he is to a visitor.
Sure, there have been lots of positive things about his arrival in Raleigh.
As a team, the unit earned a third consecutive division championship. On a personal level, Burns recorded 18 goals, and finished tied with teammate Brady Skjei for the third-most by any defenseman in the NHL this season. His 61 points were the most by a blueliner in their first season with a franchise since 2005-06, when Scott Niedermayer produced 63 with the Anaheim Ducks.

Burns and Jaccob Slavin have been a solid number-one defensive pair and Burns's offensive contributions have played a part in a record-setting season for the team's defense. The unit produced a franchise-best 59 goals over the course of 82 games and Burns himself finished just outside the top 10 in points by a defenseman.
"I think if you looked at the big picture there's definitely a lot of growth. It's come a long way," Burns said. "I think there's still a way to go. I think there are still mistakes I'm making that I think just come from a lack of chemistry. No. I think that's the wrong word."
He pauses for a moment and then references the team's long-time defense tandem of Brett Pesce and Brady Skjei as it relates to his ongoing work with Slavin as a defensive unit.
"You can just tell that it's just one mind almost, the way they play together and the way they read off each other," Burns said. "Slavo's such a great player, it's just a very different game, so it takes time. I think at the start I'm trying to come in and do system things right and there's just a lot of differences. I think if you look at the big picture it's come a long way but there's still growth to do and get better at."
It would have been easier to say no to the trade. Even though San Jose has fallen on hard times and under rookie GM Mike Grier is in the midst of an obvious rebuild, Burns could have stayed a Shark. He's under contract through 2024-25.
But he's 37. He's won a Norris Trophy and is the highest-scoring active defenseman in the game. He passed several legends of the game this season, currently sitting 15th all-time in points by a blueliner. He would like very much to add a Stanley Cup to what is a Hall of Fame resume. So when Grier came to Burns about a trade, he agreed almost instantly to become a Hurricane.

But more than what the move might mean in terms of personal accomplishments, Burns relished a chance to challenge himself. He wanted to feel that prickle of the unfamiliar, to face uncertainty where there had been routine.
"I think it's good. I think that change is good," he said. "I think you get, not set in your ways, but I think you just take things for granted and I think every day now I come to the rink and it's like, you've got to try to be on because there are so many things."
If you're content with the status quo, if you take the path of least resistance as a pro athlete, or anyone really, especially near the end of a career, where does that lead?
Burns knows.
"I know I'm older. I know that. But I think it's hard to ever look at it that way because if you start looking at it that way it's a steep downhill drop," Burns said. "I have a lot of fun every day. It's a really great group. It's a group of good people here. Not only the team but the people in the background, making the team go."
On one hand, it seems counterintuitive to hear a player of Burns' stature talk of nervousness and fretting about screwing up a drill. Yet there is something reaffirming about it and it's something that seems to permeate the locker room. How can young players like Seth Jarvis or Martin Necas or Andrei Svechnikov not be dedicated to their craft when a future Hall of Famer takes those small details to heart like Burns does?
"I screw a drill up today and it's like oh my God," Burns said with a laugh. "Typically you just take it for granted and now I'm like thinking. I'm trying to fit that into a new team dynamic and new players. There are just a lot of things. You know it's hard. I think it's difficult to do but I think it's probably, in the long run, it's better for me. It just forces you to keep your energy up and to kind of stay on the gas a little bit."
Head Coach Rod Brind'Amour chuckles when he's told of how Burns was lamenting his practice acumen.
"Listen, he's elite. And what I think what he means is that it's because we're not letting him off the hook. Like, if there's a play that he can do better, we're going to tell him," Brind'Amour said. "It's not like we're not going to put him back out there. But if we see something that we think is a different way to do things than he's accustomed to, then we remind him. That's what he's talking about."
"We already know that he's a drill killer for sure but there are lots of players like that. I was a drill killer too. You throw a new drill at me and I'm messing it up," Brind'Amour added, again with a laugh. "What is great about him, and again we talked about this earlier I think, he's done everything individually and yet he still wants to get better. He's still sitting there going, 'How do I do this better?' And that's what is great about him."

As soon as Paul Stastny signed with the Hurricanes as a free agent this past off-season, he got text messages and calls from some of his pals who had played with Burns. They insisted Stastny was going to love playing with the big defenseman.
"It's like, no, I don't know. I don't know about that," Stastny said with a laugh.
That's because until he joined the Hurricanes, Stastny's entire career had been spent in the Western Conference and that meant lots of run-ins with Burns. Lots.
"Yeah, you always hated playing against him. One of those guys, it reminds me of those old school players when I first came in," Stastny said.
Guys like Hall of Famer Chris Pronger. Guys who would constantly whack, hack, crosscheck, forearm, and maul, often with impunity.
"But because they're so much stronger it looks normal. It's normalized for guys like that," Stastny explained. "They do it all the time and the refs are like 'Oh it's second nature.' Same with Burnzie. You'd get pissed off. He'd give you a big whack or crosscheck or forearm. And it'd happen in preseason sometimes too. And it'd just piss me off, too. Because for him it's just like he gets into it and doesn't really care who it is and that's what makes him who he is."
It is one of the great truisms of the game that those players you loathe playing against are invariably the players with whom you want to line up in a critical game or playoff series.
"It seems like all the kinds of players you can't stand playing against, or who annoy you on the ice, kind of think the way you do and there's a reason they're like they are," Stastny said. "Alex Steen was one of those guys. I absolutely couldn't stand him before I signed in St. Louis and now we're best friends."

Mikko Koivu, the long-time captain of the Minnesota Wild, was drafted two years before Burns. The two became close friends during their shared time in Minnesota.
What stands out for Koivu is the skill set that allowed Burns to seamlessly move from forward to defense, then back to forward before settling in as a Norris Trophy-winning defenseman.
"I think it says a lot about a player and about him, if you can do both at an NHL level," Koivu said. "That's not an easy thing to do. What that tells you is how gifted he is."
It wasn't that Koivu hated playing against Burns after the trade with San Jose that made the departure so painful, although that was a fact. But it was more that Koivu missed Burns and the person and friend he'd become.
"He has a very good heart," Koivu said. "And I think for me, one of the guys that I really missed from early on. And I was very sad, upset when he got traded from here."
"He's always been himself you know? He doesn't hide it," Koivu added.
He recalled one day that seemed to encapsulate Burns and his comfort in his own skin. There were about 10 Wild players in the trainers' room chirping at each other and carrying on boisterously.
"And he's just sitting there reading a book about snakes and totally in his own world," Koivu said. "And I was like, how is that possible with all this going on? He has that. He's very focused and can focus on one thing and it doesn't matter where he is."

Burns was acquired by the Sharks in a blockbuster deal in the summer of 2011 and it was in San Jose that he made the permanent move to defense after being drafted as a forward and floating between forward and defense in both Minnesota and San Jose.
Dan Boyle was the skilled, veteran presence on the back end in San Jose when Burns arrived.
"He was a little wild, all over the place," Boyle recalled. "He was a little bit of a wild horse."
But Boyle saw Burns harness enormous physical attributes and ultimately take over as the Sharks' go-to defender.
"He's got all the attributes you want in a player," Boyle said.
When a player like Burns comes to a new team, especially after having spent so much time playing a critical role for a perennial Cup contender, the transition can be a bit more delicate than for a role or depth player.
Boyle, who won a Cup in Tampa in 2004 and finished his stellar career with 1,093 regular season games, relates to Burns's nervousness at moving to Carolina. Boyle went through something similar when he signed with the Rangers in the summer of 2014, going to Manhattan as a kind of 'missing piece' element to a Cup-hopeful Ranger team.
"You do get nervous," Boyle said. "You don't want to disrupt what they have going."
But there is a reason contending teams acquire players like Burns and Boyle and that is because they have established a distinct style and way of playing.
"You play a certain way, and he certainly does," Boyle said. "And they got you for a reason and you have to remember that. You do have to play your game."
Boyle helped the Rangers to an Eastern Conference final in 2015 and is pleased to see Burns fitting in well in Carolina.
"I'm happy to hear he's doing well. The points don't matter, it's all about wins and losses," Boyle said. "He's a really good guy. And he's one of those guys who will do what it takes to win."

Here are two things that stand out as windows onto Burns's new world vision, his North Carolina vision if you will.
First, Burns's son, Jagger, is playing youth hockey in Raleigh and so Burns is often making multiple trips to the team's practice facility for his own practices and then his son's games or practices. It reminds him of his own experiences growing up north of Toronto.
"For sure you think about differences and what my dad did for me, well my mom and dad," Burns said.
"I remember going to watch one Leafs' practice and being like, 'Wow, oh my God,'" Burns recalled. "Well, my kid's at the rink and sees the guys twice a week. So it's different. If I got a brand new stick it was such a huge thing for me. My son, he's grabbing Svech's stick and seeing what he's using. It's just going to be different so you've got to find ways to try to get through to him, to work on those things that were instilled in me by my dad, find ways to make them grind a bit."
Speaking of Svechnikov, the influence there is interesting as the talented younger winger has been eager to help Jagger with things like his now-famous lacrosse move.
Even before the family moved east, Jagger was enamored with Svechnikov, Burns said. Now, Jagger is getting on-ice tips and then asking his dad to send a video of his own efforts with various trick moves to Svechnikov for his assessment.
"I used to tell my son 'Would you quit that nonsense.' Like, it's garbage. And then I get traded here and to see how skilled (Svechnikov) is and how easy he can do it I'm like, wow," Burns said. "You know, it's a difference of a generation. So I started to learn from Svech. How do you do it? What do you do? How do you do it? Now I find myself working on it."
Let's just say we're waiting for the moment Burns puts that education to work in scoring a lacrosse-style goal in a game.
But the relationship is indicative of how quickly and easily Burns has made connections regardless of the sometimes significant difference in ages.
In fact, Burns notes that Seth Jarvis, 21, is closer to Jagger in age than Burns.
"I remember when I was a young guy on the team and I had the old guys bringing their kids around. I remember being around those kids and how it made me feel," Burns said. "Now I'm on the other side of it and I think it's a great thing, not only for Svech to be around my kid but for my kids to be around Svech. It's like a two-way street I think."
For Svechnikov the answer is simple, it's not age, it's attitude.
"He's a very funny and fun guy to be honest," Svechnikov said. "It's fun to spend time with him every time. He's a little bit older than me but I feel like he's my age, to be honest. It just makes it fun. You want to hang out with him because it's just so much joy and you get to know some stories as well."

And then there is this.
The Hurricanes' schedule around Thanksgiving was pretty chaotic. The team played in Boston on the Friday after Thanksgiving so there was a practice on Thursday and then there was Burns offering to host a potluck Thanksgiving dinner for any of the team that wanted to join in. Kids, extended family, and everyone was welcome. And it was a huge success.
Burns recalled the scene from the upper deck at the family's new home where he was grilling assorted wild game.
"And I was grilling up on the second level so I got to look down and I was like wow, this is really cool. because there were a lot of people I didn't know. That I hadn't met," Burns said.
"Kids are playing together," he added. "They're all playing mini sticks and wrestling. It was awesome. I was really happy to be able to do it and have a great time with people. Everybody brought different food from their Thanksgiving and it was awesome. It was really, really special."
Stastny judged the success of the impromptu gathering by how much the kids didn't want to go home as darkness was falling and the team was getting ready to head out of town.
"Just a massive feast. There was geez, 20, 30 kids running around having a blast," Stastny said. "It was harder to leave because the kids just wanted to stay there and it got pitch black. Just the hospitality of having us. He loves it. The guys love it. The girls love it. When you have a close-knit team like you do here, you realize you get together a lot and that goes a long way."
The Thanksgiving gathering, seeing all of his new teammates and their extended families, reminded Burns of being in San Jose for so long and how by the end of his tenure there he knew everyone who came and went at the Shark Tank. Now, sometimes Burns will be in the locker room at PNC Arena or at the practice rink and he'll see someone come in that he doesn't recognize and he'll wonder what they do, what role they fulfill.
It's another reminder of the process he is just nicely into.
"I think of all the times in here I'll see somebody, I'm like I don't even know what they do. I don't know if they work at the rink. work with the team, or work inside staff, outside staff," Burns said. "Those are things that you kind of, after a long time in a place you just know. Now I don't. So, I think I'm hoping some of the nerves start to go away and you start to get comfortable and it will. But still, I think it's a good thing to have them a little bit."
In the end, maybe it's less about the ongoing synergy between Burns and Slavin and who leaves the puck where or what the protocol should be on a dump-in or switching off coverage or whether he gets every drill right in practice and more about those kinds of moments in the backyard or after practice on the ice with kids or in the locker room.
"He's such a team-focused player, which is another aspect that we don't talk about much but that's so important," Brind'Amour said. "Everyone sees the on-ice stuff, but he's our leader as much as anyone off the ice. Already. And he just got here. He's not stepping on toes, but he's taken over where he needs to take over. He's been awesome. I love the guy. I wish we would have had him 10 years ago."
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