With free agency in the rear window, we have reached the doldrums of hockey news that are July and August. Thus, it’s a great time to recap individual performances from this past season. I’ll be going in order in terms of points, so I’ll start with Brent Burns.

Despite a “down” season from 2016-17, where he was a goal away from being the first defenseman to score 30 goals in a season since 2008-09 when Mike Green scored 31, Brent Burns was still one of the most offensively productive defensemen in the league. In fact, Burns led the Sharks in points, one of two defensemen to lead their team in points last season along with Erik Karlsson. (Though, he was tied with Mark Stone, who played in 13 fewer games.)

Fans will remember Burns’ season for dropping from the high heights of 29 goals to the low lows of “just” 12 goals last season. For one, only 23 defensemen last season reached double-digits in goals. Burns was still tied for 18th in goals amongst defensemen despite shooting a measly 3.6%, the lowest in his career since 2008-09 (2.9% in 47 games).

And that’s important to remember because Burns played pretty much the exact same game that he has since Peter DeBoer became the Sharks’ coach in 2015: maximum point shots, all offense, no defense. That’s not to say that Burns is a total tire fire in his own zone, but sometimes the results are, uh, less than impressive to say the least.

But, for one, it was a weird year for Burns. He didn’t score a goal until Game 21 on November 24th against the Vegas Golden Knights. It wasn’t for a lack of trying either; his 84 shots on goal until his first goal of the season are evidence of that. If you remove those 84 shots, his shooting percentage rises to 4.8%, which is still low for his career but is still less of an outlier than his 3.6% on the season.

Burns was still contributing in other ways than just scoring goals as well. His 55 assists, which were second in the league, were a career-best, meaning that while he wasn’t putting the puck in the back of the net as often as Sharks fans were used to, he was still a dynamic playmaker in the attacking zone. By most metrics except goals, Burns was just as effective in the offensive zone as he had been in past seasons.

Lastly, Burns faces a lot of criticism for turning the puck over. After all, Burns was second in the league in giveaways with 124. First, giveaways are largely an inexact science. Much like hits, which I’ve discussed in the past, the stat suffers from a lack of a proper definition and is at the mercy of whoever is counting them. Some counters may have a different definition of what a turnover is than another.

But getting back to Burns, his high volume of giveaways is mostly due to how much time he has the puck and what he does with it. Puck-moving defensemen like Burns turn the puck over a lot. John Klingberg, Erik Karlsson, P.K. Subban, and Ivan Provorov, all solid defensemen, all rank highly in giveaways – it’s just a function of the position.

And this is used to somehow discount Brent Burns’ playmaking abilities? I’m not sure why you would do that because all of the evidence says otherwise. Look at the data from the Passing Project below and tell me that Burns is a terrible playmaker. I’ll wait.

2018-19 Outlook: Expect more of the same from Burns. Burns continues to be one of the most prolific shot-takers in the league, and that should continue. Much of the Sharks’ even-strength shot production in recent seasons has come from the point, and there’s no reason to believe that that trend won’t continue into next season as well.

Expecting him to hit 30 goals is probably too optimistic, but he also should improve upon his 12 goals from last season, especially because he shot 2.45% at even-strength. 15-20 goals are probably more realistic, and he should continue to fight for the league lead in goals by a defenseman. And with Joe Thornton returning to the lineup, Burns (and everyone else for that matter) might see an uptick in power play points as well as long as Thornton stays healthy.

The only reason why we would see a further depreciation in points from Burns next season is for a simple reason: age. Entering next season, he’ll be 33 years old. There’s always a chance that Burns’ production could continue to fall as a result of another year of aging. Expecting a player in their early-30’s to produce can be a dangerous gamble. Still, I don’t think that another 60-70 point season is unlikely as long as he stays healthy.

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