Four NHL Players in Late 30s With Masterful Durability in 2023-24

Players like Joe Pavelski and Brent Burns have been household names among NHL followers for years. These four players still wow, with one even thickening the plot for his team.

As the saying goes, Father Time is undefeated.

In the end, even Tom Brady had to call it a day. And in the NHL, there comes a time when every player needs to come to terms with the fact that the decades of strain that his body has absorbed while performing at the highest level leaves him unable to compete any longer.

But this story is not about that. It's about four players who are defying the odds of durability and still getting the job done well into their late 30s.

Two of them are literally from another era, having started their NHL careers before the 2004-05 lockout. The other two continue to find ways to deliver at the top of their games.

We may not ever see another goalie drafted first overall like Marc-Andre Fleury was in 2003. And we also might not ever see a goalie jump straight into the NHL as Fleury did. As an 18/19-year-old in 2003-04, Fleury went recorded four wins, 14 losses and two ties in 21 appearances with the Pittsburgh Penguins. He did his bit to keep the Pens near the bottom of the standings so that they could snag Evgeni Malkin, Sidney Crosby and Jordan Staal with top two picks in the next three drafts. 

The case of Brent Burns is fascinating as well. Selected at No. 20 by the Minnesota Wild in 2003, he was drafted as a right winger but made his NHL debut as an 18-year-old defenseman on Oct. 8, 2003. Altogether, he suited up for 36 games in his rookie year. 

While Fleury has been lauded this season for reaching second place on the all-time wins list for goalies, Burns also deserves respect for his amazing career. Not only did he capture the Norris Trophy in 2017, but he also hasn't missed a night of work in more than a decade. Now 38, Burns is up to 809 consecutive games played. He's still averaging more than 20 minutes a night for the Carolina Hurricanes, with a shot at cracking 50 points for the eighth time in his career.

Drafted in the third round in 2005, Jonathan Quick took a more traditional, patient development path. He was already 26 and in just his third full season as a full-time NHLer when he won the Conn Smythe Trophy after backstopping the surprising Los Angeles Kings to the 2012 Stanley Cup. 

That summer, Quick signed a monstrous 10-year contract extension that took effect in the 2013-14 season. That deal remained in effect even though the CBA that came out of the subsequent lockout capped salary lengths at eight years. 

Quick made it to the final year of that deal before the Kings traded him to help improve their playoff roster last spring. This season, he signed a team-friendly 35-plus contract with the New York Rangers, with a base salary of $775,000 and $100,000 in relatively difficult-to-attain performance bonuses.

Per PuckPedia, Quick will earn $25,000 if he appears in 40 games. So far, he's at 17 and has generally been playing about once every three or four games. 

He's also due $25,000 if he logs a save percentage of .915 or better with 20 games played. That's potentially attainable: he's right at .915 at the NHL all-star break.

The third bonus is $25,000 for 20 wins. That'll be a reach but only because of his usage. He's 10-4-2 so far this year. 

And bonus No. 4 is $25,000 for a Stanley Cup win. The jury is out on that one, especially given the Rangers' 5-7-2 swoon in the month of January.

For the Rangers, it's great news that Quick is delivering wins and points with sparkling numbers, including a 2.43 goals-against average and 9.1 goals saved above expected, per moneypuck.com. 

The problem is that Quick is outperforming his partner, Igor Shesterkin, who likes and expects to play the lion's share of his team's games. But the 28-year-old has gone 4-5-1 in January and watched his save percentage slip from .911 to .899. His goals saved above expected also dropped to 0.70, while his GAA has risen to 2.86.

A crease controversy could be brewing if Shesterkin doesn't return to his prior Vezina form as Quick chases one last hurrah just two hours away from his Connecticut hometown. 

Now in the one-year contract phase of his career, 39-year-old Joe Pavelski is on pace to crack 30 goals for the sixth time in his career — and the first time since he joined the Dallas Stars in 2019. 

At 16:36, his ice time has taken a bit of a dip, but his shooting percentage of 15.2 percent is identical to last season — and well above his career average of 12.9 percent. 

Pavelski is aging like fine wine. But as a seventh-round pick who had to work hard to carve out a spot for himself in the NHL, he has proven that he's so much more than the 'Little Joe' nickname he bore while he was with the Sharks.

During his five seasons in Dallas, Pavelski has only been sidelined for seven total games, including the five that he missed while in concussion protocol during the 2023 playoffs. 

With a base salary of $3.5 million this year, his 19 goals and 43 points in 49 games make him a bargain no matter what his age. He does have $2 million in bonuses that he has already reached — $1 million for 10 games played and another $1 million for 20 games. But even at $5.5 million, he's delivering great value.

With the Stars looking like contenders again, expect to see Pavelski raise his game to another level as he strives to win his first Stanley Cup this spring.