Player Profile: Sebastian Aho

Sebastian Aho is a player of many names.

Fishy. Seabass. Starfish. Alternate captain. Future captain. Number 20. Career Cane.

It’s become impossible to go to a grocery store or any major event in the Raleigh area and not see at least one Aho jersey, the number 20 flat on the backs of countless fans, his name radiating off the walls of PNC Arena after every goal he scores. Since his draft in 2015, Aho has become an unexpected star for the Hurricanes, playing a major role in the organization’s marketing and central core with Andrei Svechnikov, Jaccob Slavin, and Seth Jarvis: the next generation of Carolina hockey legends.

Born in Finland on July 26, 1997, Aho’s professional hockey career began in the SM-Liiga, the top Finnish professional hockey league. During his time in the Liiga, Aho played for Oulun Kärpät, the most successful Finnish hockey team of the twenty-first century. After his debut in 2013, Aho became a well-known name in Finnish hockey circles for giving Oulun Kärpät a 2015 championship win after scoring a game-winning goal during a game seven in overtime. He was listed as the Top-20 European forwards eligible for the NHL that same year.

Aho has performed under international lights for Finland multiple times, from 2013 to 2018. His international career began in 2013 at the Hlinka-Gretzky Cup, appearing again in 2014. In 2013, Aho won his first gold medal at the European Youth Winter Festival in Romania. From 2014 to 2016, Aho appeared four times at the World Junior Championships, both in the WJC18 and WC lineups. In 2015, he helped the Finnish team win a silver medal at the WJC18 Championship, winning his second gold medal at the World Junior Championships the next year. In 2017, Aho won his second silver medal at the World Championship. He has appeared in multiple lineup speculations for the Finnish Four Nations 2024 team and hypothetical 2026 Winter Olympic lineups for Finland.

Drafted in the second round of the 2015 NHL Draft, thirty-fifth pick overall, Aho signed his first-ever Carolina Hurricanes contract in June 2016, the traditional three-year rookie deal. He debuted later that year for the Hurricanes’s home opener. That same season, at the age of 20, Aho became the youngest player in franchise history to score a hat trick. 

At the time, the Carolina Hurricanes were a struggling franchise. 10 years after a Stanley Cup win, the organization was notorious for dysfunctionality. Still owned by Peter Karmanos, the former reviled owner of the Hartford Whalers, coached by Bill Peters, who has since been accused of physical abuse by former Hurricanes players; the Carolina Hurricanes were an NHL show of shame. At the time, the organization had some of the NHL’s lowest attendance. The same year that Aho was drafted, the Hurricanes were involved in a carousel of relocation rumors, with Quebec City and Las Vegas being reported spots for the franchise to move. 

Aho was one of the first signs of hope for the franchise. Today, Karmanos owns a minority stake in the team, with Tom Dundon as the majority owner. Rod Brind’Amour, a franchise legend, remains one of the longest-tenured coaches in the NHL. 

During the 2018 season, Aho became a breakout star. Breaking a Ron Francis record for longest season-starting point streaks (also tying the NHL’s record at the time), leading the Hurricanes in points, goals, and assists; and helping the Hurricanes to their first trip to the NHL playoffs in over a decade, fans expected Aho to remain a franchise-defining player.

That offseason changed things.

During 2019’s free agency day, as an RFA, Aho became the first player since 2013 to sign an offer sheet. The sheet was signed with the Montreal Canadiens, who offered Aho twenty-one million dollars within the first year of the deal. The Hurricanes matched the Montreal offer, and re-signed Aho to a five-year extension. 

Aho was re-signed again to an eight-year extension in July 2023. The deal will officially begin during the 2024-2025 season, paying him approximately an nine-million dollar AAV.

Since the 2019 extension, Aho has remained the Hurricanes’ core leader. He remains the franchise player fans hoped he could be at the start of his career.

With 89 points in total during the season, the forward represented the Carolina Hurricanes at the 2024 NHL All-Star Game for the second time. He scored his five-hundredth career point, led the Canes in goals, points, and assists for the third time in his career, and at two-hundred-and-fifty-one NHL goals, Aho reached the third-most goals in Hurricanes/Whalers history.

He was praised by fans for his leadership growth, such as holding a players-only meeting in Vancouver during a disastrous West Coast outing in December 2023. When hockey fans think of the Carolina Hurricanes, they think of Sebastian Aho, who has become the go-to player for media, despite English being his second language. They think of the same Sebastian Aho who helped lead the Hurricanes to multiple memorable comebacks, including taking the 2024 New York Rangers to a Game 7 in Round 2 of the Stanley Cup playoffs.

Sebastian Aho will likely remain a player of many names throughout his career. Hurricanes fans hope it’ll be Captain, future Stanley Cup hoister, and Canes legend. Maybe no other player in Carolina will have the honor to wear Aho’s twenty after his retirement, maybe not. Who knows what the future holds for the “sensational fish”. But for Sebastian Aho, the sky is the limit, and Carolina fans are grateful to be a central part of the journey.