Brent Burns is back in Minnesota with the Colorado Avalanche carrying a 2-0 lead into Game 3 of the Western Conference Second Round on Saturday, and the 41-year-old defenseman is doing it in the middle of his 22nd NHL season. The Wild selected Burns in the first round, No. 20 overall, in the 2003 NHL Draft, and the game gives him a chance to keep extending a run that has already made him one of the league’s most durable players.

Burns has played 1,007 consecutive regular-season games, second in NHL history behind Phil Kessel’s 1,064, and he has continued to log meaningful minutes deep into the spring. He had 35 points in 82 regular-season games this season and has one assist in six playoff games so far, while averaging 18:53 of ice time per game in the playoffs and 18:05 during the regular season.

The trip also pulls Burns back to the place where he spent seven seasons, ending with Minnesota in 2010-11, before moving on to San Jose, Carolina and now Colorado. He has 945 career points in 1,579 games, with 273 goals and 672 assists, plus 81 points in 141 Stanley Cup Playoff games. He reached the Stanley Cup Final once, with the Sharks in 2015-16, and lost to the Pittsburgh Penguins in six games.

Burns said he still shows up to the rink every day because he enjoys it, and he described that daily grind as part of why he keeps putting himself through the season. He also said it does not really matter where he is playing, adding that it would not matter if he were anywhere else, because at this stage it is about getting to the next step one at a time.

There is familiarity here, too. Former teammate Nick Schultz said Burns was the kind of character player teammates liked being around, a happy-go-lucky presence who came to the rink in a good mood and was open to trying anything. That history gives Saturday’s game a little extra texture, but it does not change the stakes: Colorado can move one win closer to Burns’ first Stanley Cup title, and Minnesota can make the series a fight again on home ice.