The day everyone was waiting for had finally arrived as the NHL Entry Draft kicked off earlier tonight. With rumours flying around all week leading up to the event, the Philadelphia Flyers stuck to their guns and kept their selection at #6 where they drafted Porter Martone.
The festivities were thrown for a loop this afternoon when the Islanders struck a deal with Montréal, where they shipped defenseman Noah Dobson for Emil Heineman and picks 16 and 17 in this year’s draft. The belief had always been that New York wanted James Hagens and they were going to try everything in their power to move back up in the first round to get their guy.
Heading into the draft, the consensus around the league for quite some time had been that Matthew Schaefer was the unanimous number one overall pick. Michael Misa and Anton Frondell were expected by many to follow suit at #2 and #3, respectively, which meant the draft would truly commence at #4 with Utah.
With Schaefer, Misa, and Frondell off the board, Utah and Nashville stood in the Flyers’ way with picks #4 and #5, where they selected Caleb Desnoyers and Brady Martin, respectively. With plenty of intriguing names to choose from between James Hagens, Porter Martone and Jake O’Brien, Daniel Brière and company went with Martone.
Standing in at 6’3” and 210 pounds, the right winger out of Peterborough, Ontario enjoyed a very successful season with the Brampton Steelheads of the OHL this season with 37 goals and 98 points in just 57 games. Martone later added 9 points in 6 games during the playoffs.
While the Flyers had a lot of depth on the wing with Matvei Michkov, Travis Konecny, Owen Tippett, and Tyson Foerster among so many others, Martone was a fairly safe selection at #6, considering how highly he was rated and ranked all season long.
Hagens was assuredly one of the more popular choices amongst the fanbase, especially since he was a centre. However, the Flyers were excited to add Martone, who is a can’t-miss prospect with a great combination of size and skill.
While he does need to add a bit of snarl and grit to his game, it should be an exciting prospect to add into the pool alongside fellow forwards Denver Barkey, Jett Luchanko, and Alex Bump. His goal scoring ability mixed with his size gives the Flyers a whole new element to look forward to for years to come.
The Flyers still currently have picks #22 and #31 in the first round but it will be interesting to see if they decide to package them in an effort to jump up with a lot of intriguing names still out there between Roger McQueen, Carter Bear, and Jackson Smith among so others.
Brière and company are definitely not done for the night so stay tuned to see what else he can conjure up.
