Heading into the 2026 Global Series in Helsinki, Finland, it was clear that Sebastian Aho was going to be the biggest star.

The Rauma native has long been one of his country's brightest stars, from winning gold at the 2016 World Junior Championships to helping lead the team to a bronze medal finish at this year's Winter Olympics to being already one of the all-time highest scoring Finnish born NHL players at just 29 years old.

All the focus was on Aho heading into these games and in Thursday's opening match, he delivered with a dominant, two-goal performance.

Aho scored both the game-winning goal and the final dagger as part of the Carolina Hurricanes' 4-1 win over the Seattle Kraken at Veikkaus Arena, much to the joy of the home crowd.

"I was actually a little nervous before the game," Aho said. "You obviously hope to win that game, for sure, that's the main thing, but I'd be lying if I said that that didn't feel good. It was nice to score in that game, for sure."

And funny enough, the goals came on the 10th anniversary of his first career NHL goal, but even crazier than that is the fact that he scored that first goal against Philipp Grubauer as well.

"That's a cool little thing to happen for him," said Carolina coach Rod Brind'Amour. "It's a great memory for him and I think he's going to remember this for his whole career. You couldn't really make it any better. 

"You knew it meant a lot to him. You could see it all week that we've been here that he's just been extremely happy and he wanted to do what he did tonight. It was great to see."

Not only did Aho put on a performance he'll remember for the rest of his life, but he also reached a pair of milestones with his goals in the process too.

First, Aho passed Olli Jokinen for the fourth most goals all-time by a Finnish born player (322).

Second, he also tied Eric Staal for the most goals ever by a member of the Carolina Hurricane, doing so in 133 fewer games.

Ron Francis holds the franchise record with 382 goals, but no Carolina Hurricane has ever scored more than Aho has now.

The Hurricanes' franchise centerman still has many more years to come in the NHL, so it will be fun to see where he winds up when he finally decides to call it a career.

"I've been fortunate to be with him since he came into the league," Brind'Amour said. "I remember his first development camp practice when he showed up and I remember talking to some of the guys being like, 'I don't know if he's going to make it' because he was just a kid. He was so little. But he just willed himself into becoming the player he is."

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