High hopes, indeed: Porter Martone beefs with ref, Andrew Painter and Justin Crawford win and VJ Edgecombe carries Sixers.

On Thursday night, pugnacious Flyers rookie winger Porter Martone, who was a freshman playing for Michigan State five days before, got his first NHL assist and went viral for mouthing off to a ref. Two games in, he’s already making plays and making enemies among both opponents and officials.

In other words, the perfect Flyer.

On Tuesday night, Phillies rookie starter Andrew Painter announced his presence with authority when he stopped the Phillies’ first losing streak of the season.

» READ MORE: Some chicken soup for the Phillies fan’s soul: Andrew Painter is good and other hitters stink, too

On Wednesday afternoon, Phillies rookie centerfielder Justin Crawford walked off the Nationals in the 10th inning and gave the Phillies their first series win.

On Thursday afternoon, Sixers rookie guard VJ Edgecombe won Rookie of the Month for keeping the Sixers afloat as the three max-salary stars licked their wounds.

A week ago, all four major sports teams in Philadelphia held at least modest hopes for big winning in the near future. A week later, with early validation of four incandescent talents, those modest hopes have turned into great expectations.

The Phillies already were playoff contenders, and now they might have a pair of cornerstone assets for the next decade.

The Sixers already can play with anyone when Joel Embiid, Tyrese Maxey, and Paul George are healthy, and now they have a kid who’s having a far better rookie season than any of them.

Martone joined a Flyers team that, surprisingly, remains in the hunt for a playoff spot, thanks in part to the emergence of Matvei Michkov from his sophomore slump.

Which brings us to the Eagles, and the bumper crop of young studs Howie Roseman plucked from recent drafts: cornerbacks Cooper DeJean and Quinyon Mitchell, defensive lineman Jalen Carter and edge rusher Nolan Smith all helped them win a Super Bowl two years ago, and all are still playing on their rookie contracts.

As Carter and Michkov have shown us, with Carter’s suspension in the Eagles’ opener and with Michkov’s absence of a conditioning program last summer, all of these kids will do dumb things. They will make big mistakes. They will tire and they will slump. One or two might even bust.

But these guys are built to last.

Martone is 6-foot-3 and 214 pounds, about the same size as John LeClair when he broke in, and those numbers are all going to rise because Martone is only 19.

Painter is 6-foot-7, 215, and 22. Crawford’s 6-2, 188, and 22.

Edgecombe, 20, already has NBA power in his 6-4 frame; he’s built like a middleweight boxer from the mid-1980s.

Well-done steaks and protein shakes, boys.

Not since 2017 has there been this much hope on the horizon for Philadelphia.

In 2017, Eagles quarterback Carson Wentz was coming off a run at Rookie of the Year, was a shoo-in as MVP before he blew out his knee, and set the Birds up for their first Super Bowl title.

Ben Simmons joined sophomore Embiid and the team made its first playoff appearance in six years.

That same year, defenseman Travis Sanheim and center Nolan Patrick joined sophomore defenseman Ivan Provarov. The Flyers made the playoffs and seemed ready to launch.

And yes, while the wretched, rebuilding Phillies finished 30 games under .500 in 2017, Aaron Nola turned a corner that made him a viable No. 1 pitcher; he finished in the top seven in Cy Young Award voting three times in the next five seasons. And talk about hope: In August, the Phillies called up Rhys Hoskins, who hit 18 home runs in the last 50 games of the season.

It mattered, too, that almost all of them were first-round picks — players delivering on potential, players returning on investment. Only Hoskins wasn’t a Day 1 guy, but he’d created enough buzz as a fifth-rounder to justify hope.

» READ MORE: When was the best era in Philly sports history?

The buzz then vs. now varies.

The Eagles’ youth movement already produced beyond expectations.

Edgecombe and Embiid were both No. 3 picks, but no one expected Edgecombe to be the next Hakeem Olajuwon. Edgecombe and Simmons were both guards, but no one expected Edgecombe to be the next Magic Johnson or LeBron James.

Painter, who hits 99 mph more often than Tiger Woods, is expected to anchor the staff for a decade, and Crawford’s the leadoff hitter in waiting.

Michkov and Martone are expected to be offensive machines.

But, again, the book isn’t written on these guys. Any of them. Philadelphia has been burned before.

Wentz turned out to be a historic bust, as did Simmons. Embiid is injured as often as he’s available. Patrick suffered concussions and never panned out, while Provarov, moody and inconsistent, was a dressing-room problem and a meh player. Hoskins, once a connoisseur in the batter’s box, lost command of the strike zone.

Reality bites.

Hope nourishes.

Painter struck out eight Nats and gave up one run in 5 ⅓ innings, sat his fastball at 97 mph, and escaped a jam.

» READ MORE: ‘Phillies Extra’ Q&A: Brian Barber on the paths to the majors for Justin Crawford and Andrew Painter

Crawford entered the weekend series in Colorado leading the team with a .412 batting average while batting ninth.

Edgecombe averaged 18.9 points, 5.8 rebounds, and 4.3 assists, mostly without Embiid, who had a strained oblique, Maxey, who had a sprained finger, and George, who was suspended for PED use.

And Martone — ah, what a beaut.

He’s an abrasive sort, but he got his first assist in a loss Thursday to the visiting Red Wings, and he’s got 14 shots on goal in his first two games, which is six more than any other Flyer, which underscores the team’s biggest issue this season, which is making goalies work.

But Martone’s abrasiveness made bigger headlines for his interaction with similarly abrasive referee Cody Beach, who, when Martone complained of a no-call, skated up to the kid, grabbed his jersey from behind, and put him in his place.

What’s remarkable about Martone is that he was drafted just last June, signed the day after his season ended, started his first NHL game two days later, and was assigned to the first power-play unit.

What’s unsurprising about Martone is that he was part of shenanigans almost immediately.

Beach might have overreacted to Martone’s complaint — hockey dogma says rookies are supposed to be seen but not heard, and they certainly aren’t supposed to openly challenge referees — but Martone carries baggage as a smart-ass. He led Michigan State with 25 goals and 50 points, and also with 23 penalties and 78 penalty minutes, but he got more attention from two moments as captain of Team Canada in the World Junior Championships in December than he got from any of his production on the ice.

After Martone scored an empty-net goal against Czechia, he skated to players assembled in front of the Czech bench and tapped Adam Novotny on the butt. Martone was issued an unsportsmanlike penalty for the action.

A few minutes later, after the game ended, the Canadians did not shake hands with the Czechia players, a longstanding tradition in international games.

Martone later apologized for both the taunting and the snubbing, but you know there’s more of that in his future.

Again: The perfect Flyer.