This is the 2023-24 edition — an archived read. Read the 2026-27 report →
Brent Burns
Carolina Hurricanes Defense
Thirty-eight years old, 82 games, the hardest shot on the club — and most of his goals came from inside forty feet.
| Season | Team | GP | G | A | PTS | +/- | PIM | PP | SH | GW | S | S% | TOI |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2003-04 | MIN | 36 | 1 | 5 | 6 | -10 | 12 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 34 | 2.9 | 13:29 |
| 2005-06 | MIN | 72 | 4 | 12 | 16 | -7 | 32 | 1 | 0 | 1 | 73 | 5.5 | 14:07 |
| 2006-07 | MIN | 77 | 7 | 18 | 25 | +16 | 26 | 3 | 0 | 3 | 108 | 6.5 | 15:48 |
| 2007-08 | MIN | 82 | 15 | 28 | 43 | +12 | 80 | 8 | 0 | 4 | 158 | 9.5 | 23:06 |
| 2008-09 | MIN | 59 | 8 | 19 | 27 | -7 | 45 | 4 | 0 | 2 | 147 | 5.4 | 22:25 |
| 2009-10 | MIN | 47 | 3 | 17 | 20 | -15 | 32 | 2 | 0 | 0 | 104 | 2.9 | 22:22 |
| 2010-11 | MIN | 80 | 17 | 29 | 46 | -10 | 98 | 8 | 0 | 3 | 170 | 10.0 | 25:03 |
| 2011-12 | SJS | 81 | 11 | 26 | 37 | +8 | 34 | 5 | 0 | 2 | 201 | 5.5 | 22:32 |
| 2012-13 | SJS | 30 | 9 | 11 | 20 | 0 | 20 | 2 | 0 | 0 | 81 | 11.1 | 16:17 |
| 2013-14 | SJS | 69 | 22 | 26 | 48 | +26 | 34 | 2 | 0 | 3 | 245 | 9.0 | 16:49 |
| 2014-15 | SJS | 82 | 17 | 43 | 60 | -9 | 65 | 7 | 0 | 2 | 245 | 6.9 | 23:57 |
| 2015-16 | SJS | 82 | 27 | 48 | 75 | -5 | 53 | 7 | 1 | 4 | 353 | 7.6 | 25:52 |
| 2016-17 | SJS | 82 | 29 | 47 | 76 | +19 | 40 | 8 | 0 | 6 | 320 | 9.1 | 24:52 |
| 2017-18 | SJS | 82 | 12 | 55 | 67 | -16 | 46 | 5 | 0 | 2 | 332 | 3.6 | 25:15 |
| 2018-19 | SJS | 82 | 16 | 67 | 83 | +13 | 34 | 7 | 1 | 6 | 300 | 5.3 | 25:06 |
| 2019-20 | SJS | 70 | 12 | 33 | 45 | -22 | 34 | 5 | 0 | 1 | 225 | 5.3 | 25:25 |
| 2020-21 | SJS | 56 | 7 | 22 | 29 | -13 | 36 | 2 | 0 | 1 | 138 | 5.1 | 26:09 |
| 2021-22 | SJS | 82 | 10 | 44 | 54 | -15 | 42 | 4 | 0 | 0 | 203 | 4.9 | 26:09 |
| 2022-23 | CAR | 82 | 18 | 43 | 61 | +19 | 44 | 4 | 0 | 2 | 255 | 7.1 | 23:13 |
| 2023-24 so far | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — |
| Career | — | 1333 | 245 | 593 | 838 | -16 | 807 | 84 | 2 | 42 | 3692 | 6.6 | 22:31 |
This Season So Far
The 2023-24 season has not started. The empty row above is his, and both it and this paragraph fill in on their own from the morning after he first plays: what he has done, what it is worth against his own last season, and the run he is on when the two disagree.
Last Season
18 goals and 43 assists in 82 games — 61 points at 23:13 a night, plus-19, in his first season in Carolina after eleven in San Jose and his nineteenth in the league.
It is his most goals since the 29 he scored in 2016-17 and his most points since 83 in 2018-19. He is 38 and he played every game.
59.9 per cent of the expected goals at five-on-five over 1,425 minutes, the 98th percentile. His ice went 64-45 against an expectation of 72.37-48.41 — eight goals short of what the chances predicted, which on this club was the standard experience.
The Finesse Game
255 shots, more than any other Hurricane, at a median of 53 feet, with 77 per cent of his attempts from beyond forty. The shot is 100.0 mph, the 97th percentile, and it is the thing everyone knows about him.
It is also not where he scored. From beyond forty feet he put 189 shots on goal and got nine — 4.76 per cent. From inside forty he took 69 and got eleven, at 15.94. The hundred-mile-an-hour shot, taken 189 times, produced half the goals that 69 shots from closer in did.
That is the most useful thing in this chapter, because Burns is the strongest case anyone could build for the point shot and the split still lands the same way. probe:slapshot puts the league rate for a defenceman shooting from beyond forty at 3.19 per cent; he beats it, and beating it is worth about nine goals a season. The other nine came from a 38-year-old choosing to be somewhere else.
The 43 assists are the larger number and the more durable one. At 23 minutes a night on the best possession club in hockey, the first pass out is the job.
The Physical Game
6-5 and 228, and 3.38 miles a game at the 95th percentile in his nineteenth season, at a top speed of 22.9 mph at the 82nd. Whatever attrition looks like at 38, it has not reached his legs.
44 penalty minutes. He is big enough that he rarely has to prove it, and 48.7 per cent of his even-strength shifts began in the offensive zone — the highest share on the club.
The Intangibles
1,333 games, 838 points, and he has not missed a game in nine seasons — 82, 82, 82, 82, 82, 70, 56, 82, 82, the two short ones being the seasons that were short for everybody. He arrived in Carolina as the man who was supposed to be finished and led the club’s defencemen in points.
He is the reason a 38-year-old is worth a chapter: not because the production held, but because the workload did.
What kind of player
The searchable half of the report. The first group is computed from the season's own data; the rest are read out of the prose above, and each one carries the sentence that produced it. A subject the report never raised is simply absent.
- measuredcomputed here from the season's own data
Each computed tag also says how well its measure holds up from one season to the next, because a tag describes a season that has finished and a reader will assume it predicts the one coming. Some do and some do not, and the gap is wide: five-on-five workload repeats well, scoring late does not repeat at all.
The numbers underneath
On the ice
Five-on-five, 2022-23 · 1,425 minutes
- Expected goals
- 59.9%
- 98th pct
- Shot attempts
- 61.5%
- 99th pct
share of the chances while he was out there
share of the attempts while he was out there
Goals while he was on the ice: 64 for, 45 against. Expected: 72.4 and 48.4.
The eye and the numbers
HindsightThe two rank him within 4 points of one another. It was written for a back edition, with the seasons that followed already known. Neither the agreement nor the gap says anything about the eye, and this report is excluded from the club-level comparison for the same reason.
Both bars are percentiles among the 141 skaters in this edition with a report and enough ice time. The report bar ranks the mean of the grades above — 76 on their own scale — against every other report's mean. The numbers bar ranks his share of expected goals. A gap is a disagreement about where he belongs, not two scales talking past each other.
Usual linemates
2022-23 · 1425 minutes at five-on-five
Share of his five-on-five ice time spent alongside each player, measured from shift charts. Special teams are excluded: a power-play unit is not a line.
Why the numbers land there
Five-on-five, 2022-23
- The club
- CAR took 58.9% of the expected goals as a club. His own share is 59.9% — 1.0 above the club he did it on.
- The role
- Second pair, 1,425 minutes at five-on-five — 95th percentile in ice time.
With and without
| Teammate | Together | Him apart | Mate apart |
|---|---|---|---|
| Jaccob Slavin | 59.8% | 60.7% | 59.5% |
| Martin Necas | 55.2% | 62.0% | 56.0% |
| Sebastian Aho | 62.2% | 58.8% | 57.0% |
59.8% together, 60.7% for him apart and 59.5% for Slavin apart. Splitting them up moved neither man. Whatever is driving the share, it is not this pairing.
Expected-goal share while both were on the ice, and for each man in the minutes he played without the other. Apart is the pair subtracted from his own totals. It does not settle who was carrying whom — apart from each other, both were still playing with somebody — but it does say whether the share travelled when the pairing broke up.
Where he shoots from
goal on goal missed
370 unblocked shots in 2022-23, 20 of them goals. His median goal came from 38 feet. 9% of his shots came from inside twenty feet, 77% from beyond forty.