Armchair Hockey Scout Beta

This is the 2025-26 edition — an archived read. Read the 2026-27 report →

20

Sebastian Aho

Carolina Hurricanes Center

74 points and a 58.4 per cent chance share, and an on-ice goal differential of minus-2 that should have been plus-15.

SeasonTeamGPGAPTS+/-PIMPPSHGWSS%TOI
2016-17CAR82242549-12661421411.216:47
2017-18CAR78293665+42480420014.517:55
2018-19CAR82305383+252634724312.320:09
2019-20CAR68382866+102684520618.419:25
2020-21CAR56243357+163273714816.219:28
2021-22CAR79374481+1838131922116.718:57
2022-23CAR75363167+84273921816.519:30
2023-24CAR78365389+34361111021616.719:38
2024-25CAR79294574+74653920714.020:06
2025-26 so far
Career677283348631+121296682064187315.119:05

This Season So Far

The 2025-26 season has not started. The empty row above is his, and both it and this paragraph fill in on their own from the morning after he first plays: what he has done, what it is worth against his own last season, and the run he is on when the two disagree.

Last Season

29 goals and 45 assists in 79 games for 74 points, plus-7, on 20:06 a night and 207 shots, with 9 game-winners — the most in the league.

58.4 per cent at five-on-five, the 98th percentile. His on-ice goals were 35-37 against an expected 53.6-38.2, which is 19 goals of finishing and goaltending disappearing from underneath the best forward on the best possession team in hockey. This is the single clearest example of luck in this edition.

The Finesse Game

A complete centre with no obvious weakness in the puck game. The release is quick and heavy from the circle, the passing is better than the assist total on a club that could not finish, and he plays the same way with a lead as without one.

28 per cent of his shots come from inside 20 feet and a fifth from beyond 40, which is a man who takes what a shift offers rather than one who only shoots from a preferred spot. He is also one of the better faceoff centres in the league, which is why he takes the hard draws in every situation.

The Physical Game

6 feet and 189, and he is not physical. He wins pucks with his stick and his positioning rather than his body, and he is not going to move anybody from the net front.

46 penalty minutes is higher than his usual and reads as a season of frustration. The durability is excellent — 79 games, and he has cleared 75 in eight of nine seasons.

The Intangibles

Nine seasons in one organisation, a contract signed to stay rather than to leave, and a reputation as the least-discussed elite forward in the league.

The honest reading of last season is that he was outstanding and the scoreboard did not record it. A 98th-percentile chance share with a minus-2 on-ice differential does not happen twice; if the club fixes its crease, he has a 90-point season sitting in front of him.

The numbers underneath

On the ice

Five-on-five, 2024-25 · 1,039 minutes

Expected goals
58.4%
98th pct

share of the chances while he was out there

Shot attempts
60.4%
99th pct

share of the attempts while he was out there

Goals while he was on the ice: 35 for, 37 against. Expected: 53.6 and 38.2.

The eye and the numbers

Hindsight
Report
96th
Numbers
98th

The two rank him within 2 points of one another. It was written for a back edition, with the seasons that followed already known. Neither the agreement nor the gap says anything about the eye, and this report is excluded from the club-level comparison for the same reason.

Both bars are percentiles among the 315 skaters in this edition with a report and enough ice time. The report bar ranks the mean of the grades above — 84 on their own scale — against every other report's mean. The numbers bar ranks his share of expected goals. A gap is a disagreement about where he belongs, not two scales talking past each other.

Usual linemates

2024-25 · 1039 minutes at five-on-five

Share of his five-on-five ice time spent alongside each player, measured from shift charts. Special teams are excluded: a power-play unit is not a line.

Why the numbers land there

Five-on-five, 2024-25

The club
CAR took 55.9% of the expected goals as a club. His own share is 58.4% — 2.5 above the club he did it on.
The role
First line, 1,039 minutes at five-on-five — 66th percentile in ice time.

With and without

TeammateTogetherHim apartMate apart
Seth Jarvis59.4%57.5%57.5%
Jaccob Slavin55.2%60.6%55.2%
Jalen Chatfield55.2%60.5%54.1%

59.4% together, 57.5% for him apart and 57.5% for Jarvis apart. Splitting them up moved neither man. Whatever is driving the share, it is not this pairing.

Expected-goal share while both were on the ice, and for each man in the minutes he played without the other. Apart is the pair subtracted from his own totals. It does not settle who was carrying whom — apart from each other, both were still playing with somebody — but it does say whether the share travelled when the pairing broke up.

Where he shoots from

goal on goal missed

338 unblocked shots in 2024-25, 29 of them goals. His median goal came from 26 feet. 29% of his shots came from inside twenty feet, 21% from beyond forty.