Coming into the Florida road trip, Carolina Hurricanes forward Sebastian Aho was considered to have a slow start among analysts around the NHL. Aho had tallied four points in the last three games before going up against the Florida Panthers on Friday, Nov. 10, and the Tampa Bay Lightning on Thursday, Nov. 11. However, it was clear that he was going to prove that his “slow start” was not going to last long as he came out of the weekend securing three points in those two games. That being said, he has now shot up the Hurricanes points chart to have a claim for the team lead with fellow Finnish forward Jesperi Kotkaniemi.
Hurricane Sebastian Ripped Through Florida
The Hurricanes came into the Friday and Saturday back-to-back in Florida off of a 3-2 win in overtime against the Buffalo Sabres back on Tuesday, Nov. 14 with a Martin Necas game-winning goal. Friday’s game did not go the way Carolina wanted as they dropped that one 5-2, technically 4-2 before the empty net goal for the Panthers’ fifth, but it was a game they did not want to remember. Head coach Rod Brind’Amour was not pleased with the team’s performance on Friday night as he stated, “Our top guys weren’t very good tonight. You’re not going to win if they’re not consistently at least matching the other team’s top guys. If you watch [Florida’s] top guys, they were all over. I don’t know where our top guys were.” It was very clear that this was the most frustrated Brind’Amour had been with his team during his tenure as the Hurricanes bench boss.
The only bright spots that came from the game were Kotkaniemi and Aho scoring their sixth and third goals of the season despite losing in an effort that did not sit well with their coach and franchise legend. Fans and people around the team were wondering how the players would respond. It was clear that they needed to make a statement against the Lightning on Saturday night in Tampa. Right away, it seemed that the guys were going to do just that.
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Carolina came out swinging, literally, as Michael Bunting got into a fight within the first two minutes of the game against Tanner Jeannot. Later in the first period, Teuvo Teravainen scored on the power play to give the Hurricanes a 1-0 lead. That goal was his team-leading ninth goal of the season. Carolina held onto the lead going into the first intermission. The second period saw the team double their lead off of a great team effort that ended with an Aho goal. Andrei Svechnikov was able to grab the rebound after an initial shot by Seth Jarvis was stopped. Svechnikov, keeping his head on a swivel, found Aho who was able to capitalize on no Tampa defender keeping tabs on him and scored to make it 2-0 Hurricanes in the second period.
The goal was Aho’s fourth of the season and his second point of the night after assisting on the Teravainen goal. Carolina in the end won the game 4-0 off of a 23-save performance from goaltender Pytor Kochetkov. It was a statement win the Hurricanes needed after how the Panthers game went along with the comments that were made by Brind’Amour, captain Jordan Staal, and Jordan Martinook. The 4-0 shutout win could be the catalyst for a run the Hurricanes need 15 games into the season. For Aho, the three-point weekend looks to be a confidence boost for him as the team’s superstar.
Aho is the Joint Points Leader for Hurricanes
Over the last five games for Aho, he has tallied seven points with two multi-point games for added measure. The 26-year-old joins fellow Finnish teammate Kotkaniemi in leading the Hurricanes with 13 points on the season after 15 games. However, Aho has gotten to 13 in only 12 games played due to missing time on the West Coast trip with an injury. That level of play while missing time is the reason why the Hurricanes gave him an eight-year extension this past offseason before the start of the 2023-24 season.
Aho is playing like the superstar that the Hurricanes and their fans have been talking about for the last couple of seasons. While he had only scored two goals in the 10 games he has played in, he was also managing to set up teammates in the process. Before the Florida trip, he was top five on the team in points for the most part. The seven points in the last five games have skyrocketed him into a tie for the points lead as mentioned before. If this stretch of games is an indicator of what is to come, Aho will be unstoppable for the Hurricanes this season.
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Throughout the 12 games that he has played in, Aho has had a mix of teammates on his wings. Whether it be Jarvis, Teravainen, Bunting, etc. he knows how to be the playmaker to set his linemates up to score while putting the puck into the net himself. However, at some point, one has to think that the Hurricanes will want to have a stable top line to go with their superstar player in Aho. Mixing up the lines can only go so far in terms of chemistry. It might help Carolina down the road to have an established first line for Aho and the wingers to get better as the year goes on. When that does happen, the league might need to pay attention to Aho who is heating up at the right time to lead Carolina into the back half of November and into the last month of 2023.
Only time will tell, but it seems that Aho is starting to find his groove, and will be hard to stop him once he’s up to full speed. Once that happens, he could be in for a huge season for the Hurricanes as they strive to claim their second Stanley Cup in franchise history.