After drafting top winger Porter Martone over center James Hagens at the top of the 2025 NHL Draft, the Philadelphia Flyers will have to wait a little longer to find the No. 1 center of their future.
In fact, the Flyers themselves even insisted they needed centers after electing to choose Martone over Hagens.
So, what compelled them to do that? The answer, according to Flyers GM Danny Briere, was as simple as Martone being the better, more impactful player.
"We said it all along, yeah, we would've preferred a center, but we felt we couldn't pass up on the chance to bring a difference-maker like Porter Martone to the team," Briere explained at the end of the first round of the NHL Draft.
The 18-year-old Martone, already a captain of Canada's U18s and his Brampton Steelheads, finished second only to Michael Misa in goals (37 to Misa's 62) and total scoring (98 points to Misa's 134) amongst draft-eligible forwards in the OHL this year.
Flyers Draft Porter Martone: Pick Grade, Instant ReactionThe Philadelphia Flyers hit a home run Friday night, picking winger Porter Martone sixth overall atop the 2025 NHL Draft.
Martone's future Flyers teammate and draft classmate, Jack Nesbitt, finished seventh in goals (25) amongst OHL draft-eligibles and sixth in points (64). That's to give an indication as to how good Martone really is at his age with his natural talents and leadership.
"If there's one thing I would say, it's, in this draft, in the first round, [Martone is] pretty close to being the most ready out of that group," Briere continued. "To be able to select him at six, I don't want to say steal, but we had him higher on our board.
"We felt if Porter was there at six, even though he wasn't a center, that it would be really tough to go by him. . . Porter, in that range, was the one guy we felt we just couldn't let go by."
So, that's the story of how Porter Martone overtook James Hagens and ended up on the Flyers by the end of Friday night.
Briere knows how many right wings the Flyers have just as much as you and I, which should illustrate just how highly this team and these scouts valued this player.
It should be noted that Martone is an Oct. 26 birthday, too, which means he'll be 19 years old fairly early into the 2025-26 season.
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Martone aspires to make the team out of camp, while Briere, cautiously, wouldn't completely rule out the possibility of his newest top draft pick playing NHL games at some point.
After all, a barely 18-year-old Jett Luchanko played four NHL games at the start of last season.
So, by that logic, Martone is closer to the big leagues than we think both from a time perspective and from a skill perspective. Come this time next year, would there be any value in him playing nearly a full OHL season as a 20-year-old? Probably not.
This is a rare occasion where an early birthday and talent intersect to a team's advantage as the Flyers gear up to take the next step in their rebuild.