Top Line Center, by the numbers Sebastian Aho.

A few days ago, the world’s best hockey players convened in the center of Silicon Valley for an All-Star celebration that lasted the entire weekend. In his three-year career, Sebastian Aho played for the Carolina Hurricanes for the first time. The young Finn has come a long way since being chosen in the second round of the 2015 NHL Entry Draft, as evidenced by the two goals he scored and the widespread media attention he received.

Aho was nearly a 25 goal scorer in his rookie season. If it weren’t for an unfortunate hit from Mark Giordano in January of last year that left him out of four games due to a concussion, he probably would have scored more than 30 goals in the previous season.

Although Aho’s offensive production is still on the rise, we have always known that he has the ability to produce inconsistent offensive statistics in the NHL. Whether he could perform into a top six center role was a question that lingered for the first two seasons of his career in North America.

It appears that we have the solution at last.

Last fall, Rod Brind’Amour took a risk—albeit a reluctant one—by starting Aho at center between Michael Ferland and Teuvo Teravainen in what turned out to be a very successful opening line. Earlier in the season, the trio was outscoring every other line in the NHL by a greater margin, with the exception of Colorado’s incredible Nathan