Carolina Hurricanes – Sebastian Aho
The Carolina Hurricanes have undergone some significant changes. Whether these changes will be good or bad remain to be seen. But one thing is undeniable – the Hurricanes are getting younger and are showing a lot of faith in their young players.
Carolina’s putting an impressive amount of faith in Sebastian Aho to take the next step in 2018-19. He’s already one of the league’s most underrated players. At the age of 20, he set career highs with 29 goals and 36 assists for 65 points. The 2015 NHL Draft class is a darn good one and Aho ranked seventh among players with at least 50 games played in points per game.
Without Jeff Skinner around, the Hurricanes will be relying on their young Finnish forward to pick up the slack. Though second overall pick Andrei Svechnikov should certainly give him some help too.
Aho has also been a very good possession player. Combine that with his lethal abilities in the offensive zone and you have someone on the verge of greatness. Aho has a shooting percentage of over 10 percent in each of his first two seasons. It still might be a bit too early to tell, but it appears he’s at worst a very good finisher and potentially a great one.
Right now, only fans of the Metropolitan Division know who Aho is. He’s that Hurricanes forward who made your goalie look silly last year. By this time next summer, Aho could be someone who a lot more people are familiar with.