- Porter Martone says the noise around him going into his first full NHL season is something he loves
- The 19-year-old put up 10 points in nine games and two game-winners in his first two playoff games
- Read below for what Trevor Zegras compared Martone’s arrival in Philadelphia to
Porter Martone knows how loud it is about to get around him in Philadelphia. He has no interest in turning the volume down.
The 19-year-old winger sat down with NHL.com’s Adam Kimelman ahead of his first full NHL season, and the expectations piled on him came up right away.
“I think when you have chatter around you, it puts pressure on you,” Martone said. “But that’s something that I love, and it’s always been something that I’ve loved ever since I was a kid. I like the high-pressure moments, high-pressure situations.”
He is already back on the ice. Martone capped Philadelphia’s 4-1 win over the Rangers in Allentown on Sunday with an empty-netter and a Rookie Series sweep, and he set up Brek Liske earlier in the game. Catch the goal and the scrum that followed:
Nobody handed him the hype. Martone went sixth overall in 2025, led Michigan State in goals and points as an 18-year-old freshman with 50 points in 35 games, then signed and walked straight into a playoff race.
Nine games later he had 10 points and the Flyers had their first postseason berth in five years.
His first NHL goal came on a 5-on-3 in overtime against Boston on April 5, when he jammed home his own rebound past Joonas Korpisalo. Take a look:
Then the postseason got silly. Martone scored twice in 10 playoff games and both were game-winners, in Games 1 and 2 against Pittsburgh. No teenager in league history had ever opened a career that way, as NHL.com’s Tom Gulitti noted at the time.
Zegras was asked what he expected from Martone before the kid showed up.
“I didn’t really know what to expect and to what extent, and he blew away everything I thought he could be,” Zegras said.
He had a shorter version of the same thought: “He was almost like our deadline trade in a way.”
Martone spent the summer on his skating, which everyone including him calls the weak link. Flyers director of player development Riley Armstrong said Martone sat out a skill session or two at June development camp but never missed a power-skating group.
That work has him at No. 2 in NHL.com’s top 26 prospects and near the front of the Calder Trophy race before a single game has been played. He is also supposed to fix a power play that finished dead last in the NHL.
None of it seems to bother him. Martone told Kimelman he would have gone back to Michigan State for another year if he did not believe he could help the Flyers win games last spring.
Jamie Drysdale watched all of it happen from the blue line and is not worried about what a full season does to a 19-year-old.
“There are going to be ups and downs, but based on his personality, based on what we saw last year, he can handle it,” Drysdale said. “He’s a heck of a player. He has that knack.”
Flyers camp opens this week, and Martone will have 84 games to prove Drysdale right.
