One could safely assume that Porter Martone’s decision to play college hockey this season wasn’t easy to make.<\/p>\n
He had to leave his junior team in Brampton, Ontario, where he blossomed into a top prospect.<\/p>\n
He also had to bow out of Flyers training camp, giving up the chance to push for the big club’s season-opening roster. Martone had an outside shot at cracking the Flyers’ lineup<\/a>, but if he didn’t, he’d be headed back to junior hockey, a level in which he dominated last season<\/a>.<\/p>\n With Michigan State, he’ll have a new and bigger challenge.<\/p>\n “I think I’ve just got to go play against some older competition, I’ve really got to get in the gym, kind of fill out a little bit,” Martone said in an interview with TSN<\/a> from the 2025 World Junior Summer Showcase. “Just going to go there with a positive attitude.<\/p>\n “They’ve won back-to-back Big Ten championships, but I just want to go in there and maybe help them win a national championship. It’s going to be a fun year, I think it’s really going to help me and they’ve got a good crew there.”<\/p>\n<\/p>\n The 2025 sixth overall draft pick put up 98 points (37 goals, 61 assists) and a plus-19 rating in 57 games last season for the OHL’s Steelheads. He had seven games of four or more points; Michael Misa, the 2025 second overall pick who also played in the OHL, had eight such games.<\/p>\n