I don’t think Hickey skated even this well. To me, Aho’s best quality, like Hickey, is they both go to the hard areas. Aho’s a gamer and I respect that. After that I don’t care for him as a defenseman on either side of the puck. He can get the puck out of the D zone pretty well, doesn’t have a great shot from the point, is frequently beaten back to the D zone, and easily outmuscled for position.
Aho doesn't usually shoots the puck from the point with full force. If you look, he's actually aiming for something. He does have a decent one timer, but Lambert doesn't use him that way.
He's only beat back to the Dzone if he over commits, which you can see he is hesitant a lot from pinching because of this. He will get beat by bigger faster players like an Owen Tippet.
He is outmuscled by larger players...no doubt, but that's because he's trying to play a role he wasn't built to play. He's an offensive dman playing a defensive role (fairly decently I might add given his size). He's been a PP specialist for his whole pro and junior career, but the team wants Dobson to take the role. IMO, Dobson needed a year in the A before coming to the NHL, but he was too young at the time.
I think if you use a PP1 consisting of Engvall - Horvat - Barzal with Dobson and AHO...you will see magic happen.