His junior head coach and common supervisor, his expertise coach and his minor hockey coach all use the identical three names.
Corey Perry. Brady Tkachuk. Matthew Tkachuk.
That’s what you’re getting, they’ll inform you — and are telling NHL groups — in Porter Martone.
James Richmond, his head coach and common supervisor with the Brampton Steelheads, sees Perry particularly — and never, he says, simply because each have worn No. 94.
“That’s Corey Perry” was the primary thought he had when he watched Martone all the way in which again in minor hockey.
“Once I’ve watched Corey Perry I say, ‘Man that man is only a canine and he’s tremendous expert,’” Richmond mentioned. “(Martone’s) across the puck on a regular basis and he’s unbelievable with the puck on his stick, and he will get beneath the pores and skin of individuals on the opposite staff, and he can rating and he can move and he’s ultra-ultra-competitive.”
Shortly after arriving at Barrie’s Sadlon Heart forward of a current recreation towards the Colts, Martone, wearing a checkered go well with, mentioned these names suited him simply superb.
“That’s who I’m,” he mentioned of modelling his recreation after Perry and the Tkachuk brothers. “I really feel like I’m a giant, highly effective ahead who sees the ice very nicely, could make performs and may rating. However I prefer to be a tough participant to play towards. I prefer to get beneath the opposite staff’s pores and skin and simply make an affect on the sport each evening and be a giant participant in huge moments.”
A bit of greater than two hours later, Martone did simply that in a tie recreation, scoring as soon as and organising one other on the identical shift. A few shifts later, he scored once more to make it 3-0 for his second aim and third level of the interval. Early within the third interval, he obtained into it with Gabriel Eliasson, the toughest player in the OHL, the 2 exchanging gloves to the face for offsetting roughing minors.
A day later, an NHL scout texted this: “How good was Martone final evening!!”
Nights like which have turned Martone, a 6-foot-2.75, 208-pound winger, right into a front-runner to go within the prime two or three picks within the 2025 NHL Draft.
If he retains having them — and everybody who is aware of him believes he’ll — they may simply make him a front-runner for the No. 1 choose, too.
Porter Martone isn’t afraid to play arduous with or with out the puck. (Terry Wilson / OHL Photographs)
The way in which Daniel Sisca’s story goes, it began with a name from his previous agent, Quartexx’s Paul Capizzano.
“Hey, pay attention, I’ve obtained one of many prime gamers within the province, he’s from Peterborough, his title’s Porter Martone, he’s a giant right-shot,” Capizzano advised Sisca, then the top coach of the Toronto Jr. Canadiens’ U16 AAA staff.
He wasn’t on the lookout for a participant and since no one had performed the season prior in 2020-2021, he hadn’t heard of Martone both. His staff was already loaded with its justifiable share of the highest gamers within the province, too, with the dynamic duo of Michael Hage and Jacob Battaglia up entrance, a blue line that featured Henry Mews and Anthony Cristoforo, and one other prime prospect, Jack Van Volsen, set to hitch them. Martone was younger, too, an October 2006 who was an NHL draft class behind these guys.
However he trusted Capizzano; he’d performed towards Martone’s dad, Mike, a former captain with the Petes and fourth-round choose of the Sabres, throughout their taking part in days; and he knew how huge, robust and difficult Mike was. And so he took Capizzano’s phrase and had Martone out to a expertise session to provide him a glance.
Instantly, he may see Martone’s ardour for the sport and the way a lot he liked being on the ice. By the tip of the skate, he’d seen the ability, too.
And so he added him to the staff as nicely.
Martone hasn’t regarded again since. That season, on what was imagined to be the second line with Van Volsen and Antonio Tersigni, they challenged Hage and Battaglia, in essence changing into a second first line. Martone even arrange a gaggle chat with the three of them to attract up totally different faceoff performs they wished to run.
“(Hage and Battaglia) had been like, ‘Properly alright, Porter’s a hell of a hockey participant and now we’ve to raise our recreation,’” Sisca described. “It was ‘You guys went out and scored and now we’re going to exit and rating and in the event you rating once more then we’re going to attain once more.’ They usually had been cut up on the ability play too, the place I mainly mentioned ‘Alright, you guys have a minute and also you guys have a minute, it’s a wholesome competitors, let’s see who can do it.’ They usually actually fed off of one another. There was no jealousy.”
After Martone and Van Volsen’s line carried the Jr. Canadiens within the early a part of that minor midget 12 months, the previous turned a supply of dialog at rinks.
“Because the 12 months went on, everybody was like ‘The place’d he play?’ After which because the video games began passing by everybody was like ‘Woah, this man’s a legit stud,’” Sisca mentioned. “He may convey all the pieces. He may penalty kill, he may play the ability play bumper, he may play the half-wall (which he’s doing now within the OHL), he might be a net-front man and rating rubbish targets, he may rating highlight-reel targets. Porter simply brings the total bundle. He can adapt and be a third-line energy ahead or a first-liner who can rating 100 factors. He’ll battle, he’ll block pictures, he’s not only a one-dimensional participant who solely thinks about ability — he’ll do no matter it takes to assist the staff win and assist himself develop.”
That 12 months, he did rating 100 factors, too. To be precise, 104 in 53 video games.
When Sisca appears again on that staff, which gained the GTHL championship and misplaced within the OHL Cup closing (after Martone scored seven targets and 15 factors in seven video games), his most memorable second is a five-on-three aim Martone scored towards the Mississauga Senators on the Silver Stick the place he gave the Jr. Canadiens the late lead and celebrated the total 200 ft of the ice till he discovered the guardian group behind the web.
At 12 months’s finish, that Jr. Canadiens staff had 5 gamers chosen within the first spherical of the 2022 OHL draft. Martone was the primary off the board, the Sarnia Sting taking him with the fifth choose (although Hage, who went ninth to the Kitchener Rangers, could have gone greater had he not been contemplating the faculty route).
That summer time, he moved to Toronto 5 days per week, returning residence to Peterborough on the weekends, so he may skate with expertise coach Leland De Langley and work out with energy coach Andy O’Brien and his staff at Junxion Efficiency.
Although the Sting traded him on the deadline of his rookie 12 months as a part of a blockbuster transfer to amass then-Mississauga Steelheads captain and Blackhawks draft choose Ethan Del Mastro as they chased a championship (Sting common supervisor Dylan Seca calls the Martones “unimaginable individuals” and mentioned the commerce was “one hundred pc Sarnia-driven”), he has gone on to grow to be the now-Brampton Steelheads captain himself.
That rookie 12 months, he registered seven targets and 12 factors as an alternate captain with Canada Purple at U17 worlds, 22 factors in 32 video games with the Steelheads after the commerce, was the youngest ahead on Crew Canada at U18 worlds (the place he registered six factors in seven video games) after which represented Canada for a 3rd time in a season on the Hlinka Gretzky Cup, successful his first gold medal with 5 factors in 5 video games and once more sporting a letter.
Final season, he then led the Steelheads in targets with 33 and completed second on the staff in scoring with 71 factors in 60 video games earlier than showing in his second U18 worlds, this time captaining Crew Canada to his second gold medal with 17 factors in seven video games (good for the match All-Star staff). Earlier than his draft 12 months even started, he was invited to the World Junior Summer time Showcase, the place he was additionally once more Canada’s youngest ahead.
This season, his third within the OHL, he obtained off to one of many hottest begins within the CHL, registering 12 targets and 25 factors in his first 11 video games.
It adopted his first summer time spent skating with De Langley’s professional group, a call De Langley made after all the gamers from that group mentioned, “No, this child may actually profit from being out right here.”
Requested about how Martone match into these skates, De Langley mentioned there have been occasions in small space video games or drills the place he’d catch himself saying “Wow” or “What the hell did I simply see there?”
It didn’t matter whether or not he was out towards a giant defenseman like Jamie Oleksiak or forwards like Sam Bennett, Andrew Mangiapane and Barrett Hayton, both. Martone wished to show to them what he was able to.
“He’s positively not timid,” De Langley mentioned, chuckling. “(Martone) worries about himself. There’s simply no complacency, which I completely love and which I do know the blokes respect as a result of it’s not typically that the junior guys get to skate with the professional guys all summer time. It’s each day and it’s cliche to say however he actually does embody that along with his maturity and at all times wanting to place in that further little bit of labor. I’ve simply been actually pleased with that as a result of the expertise’s there however it could possibly go wasted generally and he doesn’t waste it.”
Every summer time when he returns for his or her skates, De Langley has seen a much bigger and stronger Martone, filling out his practically 6-foot-3 body to the purpose he appears extra like knowledgeable than an adolescent.
His dedication off the ice has proven in his fixed enchancment on it, too.
“Once I first noticed him the primary summer time, you knew that there have been so many distinctive expertise and abilities that he possesses along with his unbelievable shot. He makes use of his body very well. And for me he has simply developed an general maturity and understanding of how good he’s and the potential and ceiling that’s there for him,” De Langley mentioned. “You don’t anticipate it from a man with that huge body to have the great gentle contact that he does and management issues in tight to make issues occur. The sky actually is the restrict.”
De Langley mentioned he wouldn’t even be stunned if Martone wears an ‘A’ within the NHL inside 3-5 years due to the mixture of his work ethic, persona and recreation.
“Even simply his fashion of play, sure he’s extraordinarily offensive and has fairly the present in that sense, however he simply performs with the jam and chew that you simply love. (He’s) at all times round it and at all times engaged. And people sorts of gamers, they convey individuals up. That’s what I see — a child that works, that comes ready, engaged, at all times has a great angle, these issues that outline leaders. That’s simply what he embodies. He’s only a phenomenal, phenomenal child.”
Porter Martone’s dedication off the ice has proven in his fixed enchancment on it. (Steven Ellis / Each day Faceoff)
What units Martone aside, Richmond says, is that there isn’t one single factor he has needed to work on — or that has taken off — in his improvement.
“In truth,” he mentioned when requested about the place the event in Martone’s recreation has come within the final three seasons, “he has simply gotten older. His legs are beginning to get thicker, his butt is getting larger, the again is getting larger, so now issues are beginning to occur. We didn’t have an opportunity to draft him as a result of he was going to be nicely gone earlier than we picked however actually since he has come over he has simply gone up, and up, and up.”
He’s additionally a hockey geek in an age the place others aren’t.
“A number of guys don’t know gamers,” Richmond mentioned. “He is aware of all the blokes. He is aware of guys on the fourth traces, he is aware of coaches, he is aware of how the groups are doing, he follows them. He doesn’t simply watch highlights. And that’s been a little bit of a difficulty with guys eager to placed on a present as a result of they see what will get placed on YouTube, however that’s probably not going to win you hockey video games on the finish of the day. He’s a pupil of the sport.”
Martone says that comes from his mother and father, who’re each now lecturers (Mike’s a highschool trainer and his mother, Angela, is an elementary faculty trainer). Nevertheless it additionally comes from rising up in what he calls a “hockey way of life.” He performed aggressive lacrosse till COVID when he was 15 and he had to decide on a sport, however it was at all times going to be hockey. His mother and father met when Mike performed in Peterborough and raised a hockey household after Mike attended trainer’s faculty following his taking part in profession. His sister performs U18 AA and hopes to play junior hockey subsequent 12 months with a aim of getting a Division I NCAA scholarship.
Although his mother and father had been at all times arduous on him and his sister about getting good grades, Thursday nights on the Peterborough Memorial Centre watching the Petes rising up and tales from his dad about the perfect years of his life in junior hockey had him dreaming about taking part in within the OHL as a child.
Now, like his dad earlier than him, he’s a captain within the league. He’s additionally chasing an OHL title with a contending Steelheads staff, a roster spot with Canada on the world juniors, a Memorial Cup and a spot on the prime of the draft.
Richmond mentioned the gamers determined the captaincy piece of the equation, not him.
“There’s older guys on our staff however once you come to the rink and are available to the room, it’s straightforward to see that it’s Porter’s staff. He may not be (the) loudest man or the oldest man however it’s his staff, so he’s the captain. Guys gravitate in direction of him off the ice. He’s nice to take care of for coaches, he’s open to studying and he desires so as to add to his recreation so he’s the selection,” Richmond mentioned plainly.
Requested to place this 12 months and all that comes with it into context, Martone simply shook his head.
“That is fairly cool, proper?” he mentioned. “Simply being acknowledged because the captain is huge. I’m excited to steer this group. We’re all anticipating to go on a deep run this 12 months. It’s your NHL draft 12 months. That is the 12 months you dream of because you’re a child. You wish to come out each evening and impress the individuals within the stands which might be watching. However I additionally suppose that what’s going to impress them is staff success, and if we proceed to maintain on successful then that can result in particular person success and extra eyes on everybody on this room.”
Thus far, that’s precisely what he’s executed.
(Prime picture: Charles Warburton / Brampton Steelheads)
