Porter Martone is excited to try and help the surging Flyers amid their playoff push: ‘I’m ready to go’
“To have the opportunity to come here with the Flyers and help them in a playoff push, I think, was a no-brainer for me,” Martone said after his first skate since turning pro. He could debut Tuesday.
Within the blink of an eye, everything changed for Porter Martone.
The Flyers prospect spent Saturday night with his Michigan State teammates after the team’s drive toward a national championship was thwarted by Wisconsin 24 seconds into overtime. He woke up Sunday morning and started thinking about his next step.
By that afternoon, he had inked a three-year, entry-level contract and was on a plane to Philadelphia.
» READ MORE: Flyers sign top prospect Porter Martone to an NHL contract
“To have the opportunity to come here with the Flyers and help them in a playoff push, I think, was a no-brainer for me,” Martone said after skating with Noah Juulsen, Garrett Wilson, and Tyson Foerster at the Flyers Training Center on Monday.
“I’m really excited to be here.”
Martone, 19, brings yet another layer to the Flyers’ lineup with his combination of offensive skill and a gritty, abrasive style of play.
“I think I just really found my identity as a player and who I need to be to be successful,” he said of his time with the Spartans. “I think coach [Adam] Nightingale really forced on me to play below the hash marks, play in front of the net.
“I think another thing that he told me when I got there, as a truth, is if I want to play the NHL level, I’m going to have to play at a faster pace. I’m going to have to get faster. And that’s something that I really worked on there.”
Flyers director of player development Riley Armstrong recently told The Inquirer that Martone’s season at Michigan State was his “coming out party.”
Making the jump from junior hockey, with Brampton of the Ontario Hockey League, to the NCAA was considered a major leap, but Martone, the sixth overall pick in the 2025 NHL draft, handled it well while gaining 12 pounds of muscle and losing 3% of his body fat.
Across 35 games, the winger had 25 goals, 50 points, and 78 penalty minutes. His 1.43 points per game rank fourth in the nation, while he is tied for sixth in points, and tied for second in goals. Martone and Quinnipiac’s Ethan Wyttenbach were the only freshmen to hit the 20-goal mark.
But now the real work begins.
Martone grew up rooting for the Flyers and has been following the team’s progress this season. He received a call from Travis Konecny on Sunday morning and text messages from Travis Sanheim and Foerster, the three Flyers he played with at the World Championships last May for Hockey Canada. He said he is “excited to join and just help any way I can.”
And that could be as soon as Tuesday. The Inquirer has learned that the Peterborough, Ontario native’s student visa has been converted to a work visa — credit all to VP/assistant general manager Barry Hanrahan — and several sources say all signs are pointing to him making his NHL debut against the Washington Capitals (7 p.m., NBCSP).
Whenever he does suit up, he’ll become the second player in Flyers history to sport No. 94. (The first? Flyers fans may want to skip this part, as it was Ryan Ellis.) But he’ll also jump onto a team that is pushing hard for a playoff spot.
» READ MORE: Flyers beat Stars, 2-1, in overtime to pull closer in the playoff hunt
With a 2-1 overtime win on Sunday over the Dallas Stars, the Flyers moved into a tie with the Detroit Red Wings and Ottawa Senators at 86 points, with all three teams trailing the Columbus Blue Jackets by two points for the second wild-card slot in the Eastern Conference.
The Flyers are also two points back of the Pittsburgh Penguins for the third seed in the Metropolitan Division and three points back of the New York Islanders, whom the Flyers play on Friday, for No. 2. And Philly has a game in hand on the Blue Jackets and Islanders.
After going over some of the offensive-zone systems and learning a little bit about how the Flyers approach the defensive zone on the ice, Martone feels he’s ready to pitch in and help the organization reach its first postseason since 2020. And the first one played in Philadelphia with fans since 2018.
As he said, “Yeah, I feel 100%. I’m pretty fresh, and I’m ready to go.”