Has Brent Burns played his last game for the San Jose Sharks?
Sharks general manager Mike Grier on Monday didn’t close the door on trading defenseman Brent Burns, saying he’ll likely let the 2017 Norris Trophy winner take the lead on a possible move to another team this offseason.
Burns, who turned 37 in March, has three years left on the eight-year, $64 million contract he signed with the Sharks in Nov. 2016. He has a modified no-trade clause in which he would accept a trade to only one of three teams.
Grier said he will talk to Burns about what he wants, and added the Sharks will proceed largely based on those discussions.
“He’s been here a long time. He’s been a great Shark player, and I’ll let him kind of lead the way a little bit on that,” Grier said, “and then we’ll go off his lead.”
Burns is the Sharks’ leader with 594 points in 798 games since he was acquired from the Minnesota Wild in a blockbuster deal in 2011.
In the 11 years since, Burns has become the Sharks’ most recognizable player. He’s been a Norris Trophy finalist three times, most recently in 2019. He is coming off a season in which he had 54 points, 12th among all defensemen, in 82 games. He was also one of the NHL’s leaders in average time on ice at 26:07 per night.
Still, the Sharks have missed the playoffs for three consecutive seasons, with a combined record of 82-101-25 in that time.
Grier has said the Sharks might need to take another step back before they can move forward as a franchise, and with a handful of other large contracts on the books, has alsoexpressed his desire to create some cap flexibility.
Trading Burns, whose contract carries an average annual value of $8 million, would certainly accomplish that goal, although it would also create a monster hole in the Sharks defense unless another blueliner was part of the return on a deal or one is acquired through other means.
“San Jose has been a special place for us, for our family,” Burns said in April after the season ended. “It’s definitely tough when you lose three years not making the playoffs. I think everybody feels that way whether they’re young or older. You’ve got guys that are in their third year going on the fourth year and they haven’t even played in the playoffs.
“At that early stage, they’ve already realized that they’ve lost those years to have a chance at it. At the end of the day, that’s what we all play for.”
One rumored destination for Burns, because he owns a ranch in Texas, has been the Dallas Stars. Not only is former teammate Joe Pavelski entering his fourth season with the team, but Pete DeBoer, whom Burns won the Norris under five years ago, is now the Stars’ head coach.
Dallas lost in the first round of the playoffs in May, but the team has promising young players in Jason Robertson and defenseman Miro Heiskanen, and may be looking to replace John Klingberg on the blue line.
In other words, the Stars are more of a win-now mode than the Sharks.
Asked if that would be a difficult decision to trade Burns, Grier said, “Sure, it’d be difficult because he’s a part of how well this team has done and he’s one of the faces of the franchise. But as a former player myself, you want to keep that competitive fire burning, and what keeps that burning is the chase for the (Stanley) Cup and winning.
“So depending on our conversation, if it is something where he says he wants to go somewhere and try and win, I get it. We all play to win, we all play to lift that trophy and as you get older you start to see the end of the line. So I would understand if that’s the route you want to go.”