Porter Martone grew up a Flyers fan. Now he’s leading their charge into the playoffs.

A youthful Porter Martone can be shedding his thoughts proper now.

To be enjoying with the Flyers, in the Stanley Cup Playoffs quickly sufficient, and up towards their biggest rivals in Sidney Crosby and the Pittsburgh Penguins?

“I think it’d be very surreal. I think he’d be pretty amped up,” Martone stated, considering again to the child who grew up a Flyers followers in Peterborough, Ontario, with a Claude Giroux poster in his basement and all. “I wouldn’t honestly believe it.”

He does not need to, although. It’s actuality, and it is the dream.

Drafted by the Flyers sixth total again in June, Martone performed a freshman collegiate season at Michigan State, then signed late final month to hop proper into the workforce’s last push after a playoff spot.

And the script could not have been written up any higher.

In so some ways, the 19-year-old was precisely what the Flyers wanted, and precisely what followers had been ready months for ever since his identify was referred to as to Philadelphia on the draft stage.

He was the huge physique who was going to battle to the entrance of the opposing web and keep there. He was the proficient winger with a booming shot, who was going to streak down the wall with the puck and at all times be seeking to shoot it. And he was one in all the key items in the Flyers’ who rebuild was hopefully going to tip the scales towards being aggressive once more.

He did.

Martone’s first NHL purpose was the major overtime winner against the Bruins on April 5, along with his toes planted proper in entrance of the Boston web.

He went on to place up 4 objectives and 6 assists for 10 factors by the 9 video games he was round for, which, by the finish, helped to have the Flyers on the ice celebrating their first postseason appearance in six yearsand all with Xfinity Mobile Arena stuffed up and roaring once more.

Yeah, that will be surreal to a younger Flyers fan whose favourite gamers included Giroux and Wayne Simmonds again in the day, like Martone stated of the child he was. It’d be a dream.

But now, it is his actuality.

Eric Hartline/Imagn Images

Porter Martone jumped proper into the Flyers’ lineup and put up 10 factors by 9 video games to shut out the common season.

Martone appears fairly calm about it today, and performs that manner, too, although issues have been altering for him fairly shortly.

He nonetheless solely simply bought to the NHL, and admitted that the tempo is quicker and that the performs get executed a lot cleaner.

He additionally jumped proper into a playoff push that was shifting a mile a minute, the place each recreation had “must-win” standing for over a month, and is now no sooner rolling straight into a first-round collection that Philadelphia has waited years to lastly have in entrance of it once more.

But Martone credited the workforce round him, significantly his veteran linemates Christian Dvorak and Travis Konecny, for serving to him get settled into the professional life, together with the season’s dash to the end, quick.

He additionally leaned on the strengths of his recreation – his shot, his energy, and his anticipation (ie Hockey IQ) – with the confidence that they may make an influence in the NHL.

For the Flyers, they definitely did, and simply in time.

Martone is a part of why the workforce and the metropolis are gearing up for playoff hockey once more, and a part of why the Flyers ought to have each cause to go toe-to-toe with the Penguins when the first-round collection begins Saturday evening in Pittsburgh.

The leap into the professionals occurred quick, positive, and so did the Flyers’ personal collective leap into the playoffs. But even so, Martone has been taking all of it because it comes, and discovering a approach to make a distinction whereas he’s at it.

“I think a big thing is, my dad always said to me, ‘Just be where your feet are,'” Martone stated. “That’s what I tried to focus on this year, and when I got here to Philadelphia, just continue to do that.

“I’ve this capacity to play hockey, and I believe for me, I simply gotta reap the benefits of that and make different folks’s lives round me higher.

“I think for me, that’s just being who I am, and not changing who I am. So that’s just coming in every day, being very confident, and just being happy while doing it.”

After all, that is a dream for Martone.

Better, even. It’s actuality.

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