For Hurricanes’ Sebastian Aho, the year 2020 has been more than about hockey
Playing professional sports at the highest level is all about growing as a player, maturing your game and, if you’re good enough, dedicated enough, becoming a star.
Sebastian Aho has done that in his first four seasons in the NHL with the Carolina Hurricanes. The Finnish center has been an NHL All-Star, twice taken his team to the playoffs, increased his goal production every year. He’s competitive, driven.
On a team that has no real superstars, Aho is the Canes’ leading star.
But the year 2020 has been like no other for Aho. It has brought about personal introspection at age 23. There has been the coronavirus pandemic, with all its challenges, with playing hockey in a bubble. Aho is aware of the social unrest in the U.S. and the issues — and deep fissures — brought about the past few months.
“I mean, I’ve learned a lot,” Aho said Friday on a media call. “You have to adjust to different things, especially this year when everything is being kind of unstable. Things have changed really quick and you just have to adjust on things and not just sit back. You have to move forward.
“It’s been a good year in that way for me, just learning a lot about myself.”
The NHL will help him continue to learn. The league will conduct inclusion and diversity training sessions for its players during training camp and the early part of the 2020-21 season.
On the hockey side, many around the NHL still are learning just how well Aho can play. He scored a career-high 38 goals in 68 games before the NHL paused the season in March because of the pandemic. Many believe he was the best player in the NHL playoff qualifying rounds once the league returned to play in Toronto.
Did you see that move against the New York Rangers? You know the one. Aho first stripped the puck along the boards from defenseman Jacob Trouba, then undressed defenseman Tony DeAngelo with a quick, filthy move to the backhand, lifting a shot to beat goalie Igor Shesterkin.
Game 3 of the qualifier was over at that point. So was the series, a three-game sweep for the Canes.
The loss in five games to the Boston Bruins, in the first round of the Stanley Cup playoffs, was a downer for everyone. Aho, who had three goals and five assists against the Rangers, did not score against Boston.
“Especially seeing Sebastian after we were done, it’s the look on his face of pure devastation,” Canes coach Rod Brind’Amour said recently. “This guy wants to win. Everybody wants to win but not everybody wants to do what it takes.”
Aho does. He has returned to Finland determined to make the most of the next few months even as he must guess — like the rest of the NHL players — about a starting date for training camps, for the regular season.
And once the season does begin, hopefully in December?
“The next step for me is to be the best team in the league and obviously win the Stanley Cup,” Aho said. “We showed everyone that we can play good hockey and we’re a confident team but it’s not good enough to get to the playoffs. Everyone on our team feels the same way, that we can raise the bar.”
A year ago this time, Aho was just getting back to Raleigh for training camp. After the offer-sheet drama during the summer of 2019, he had a new five-year contract that would pay him $8.454 million a season, the highest on the team, and was loaded with bonus money. He also had a slow start to the season.
“Even though I had a really bad start personally I battled through it,” Aho said. “I felt like that was a good thing to learn, that though you have a bad start you can still have a good season. It’s not always going your way and it’s just staying with it.”
And that’s the plan for the Hurricanes: staying with it. Carolina unexpectedly reached the Eastern Conference finals in 2019 and were a playoff team again in 2020. Brind’Amour and general manager Don Waddell believe with a few additions and the continued maturation of such younger players as Aho and Andrei Svechnikov, the team can take the next step in the playoffs.
“We’re not talking about this team just making the playoffs anymore, we’re talking about how we’re going to build a team that will go deep into the playoffs and eventually will win a Stanley Cup,” Waddell said recently. “Every step is difficult. There is no easy step.”
Aho has taken steps each season, from being a second-round draft pick — how many teams are kicking themselves over that? — to being moved from wing to center to becoming an All-Star and one of the league’s most productive players.
But Aho is more interested in his team winning that adding to his personal accolades. The Canes have been in wild-card playoff position the past two seasons but want better finishes in the ultra-competitive Metropolitan Division to improve their playoff seeding.
“We’re still a pretty young team and I think our guys still have more to come,” Aho said. “I’m pretty excited about our team and getting a little better every year and hopefully next year we’ll take the next step.”
This story was originally published September 4, 2020 at 12:16 PM.
