2025 NHL Draft Diary: Porter Martone

Porter Martone, a right wing with Brampton of the Ontario Hockey League, will file a draft diary for NHL.com this season leading up to the 2025 NHL Draft. The 18-year-old (6-foot-3, 208 pounds), who was born in Peterborough, Canada, is an A rated skater on NHL Central Scouting's players to watch list and a projected top four pick in the 2025 draft. He leads the OHL with 50 points (20 goals, 30 assists) in 24 games while serving as captain this season.

Hi hockey fans.

To begin this month, I want to say how grateful and honored it is to be invited by Hockey Canada to its selection camp (Dec. 10-13) for the 2025 (IIHF) World Junior Championship (Dec. 26-Jan. 5). You dream of playing in the World Juniors as a little kid and to get the opportunity to go to selection camp is very exciting. I'm just willing to do anything to hopefully crack the lineup and help the team win a gold medal in Ottawa.

As far as some of the most memorable moments I have of the World Juniors, I'll never forget the goal scored by Barrett Hayton late in the third period of the gold medal game against Russia (in 2020) to tie the game that Canada eventually won in overtime, 4-3. Hayton is from Peterborough, so I always follow and root for those players from my hometown.

Our team (14-10-1) has been playing well of late, and my linemates (left wing Carson Rehkopf and center Luke Misa) have been working really hard and we're really clicking right now. I'm really enjoying helping our team win games.

I really enjoyed the time spent at the CHL USA prospects challenge in London and Oshawa, Ontario, late last month (Nov. 26-27). It was a really fun experience, and it was good to play with those top prospects in the CHL in your age group. There were two competitive games against the (United States) and we came away with two wins, so I really enjoyed it.

I had one assist in the two games, and I felt good out there. I felt like I was physical, I was very engaged, was making plays, and I think I played at a high pace. Maybe I didn't come out on the stat sheet, but who cares about that. We cared as a team about the wins, and I feel like I helped our team win the games.

I thought my line with Michael Misa (Saginaw, OHL) and Caleb Desnoyers (Moncton, QMJHL) was good. I think we had a lot of chances and were rewarded.

The fans and atmosphere in London and Oshawa were great. We stayed positive even though we had some ups and a little bit of downs, but we stayed positive and just kept playing to win.

We earned a big win at Saginaw on Saturday against the defending Memorial Cup champions (5-3 victory; Martone had one goal and one assist). I love the game of hockey and when you're going up against other players and the defending Memorial Cup champs ... that's our goal this year. We went there and got a win, and it was a huge for our team. It's good going up against really good competition.

Thanks for reading this month. I'll check back in January.