NHL Draft Prospect: Porter Martone, Penguins Target

Reports swirled Thursday that the Pittsburgh Penguins were attempting to trade up in the NHL Draft, presumably to select complete-package winger Porter Martone.

Martone is the captain of the Brampton Steelheads and a winger with all of the skills. He’s got size (6-foot-3, 205 pounds), skating, a good shot, and a high hockey IQ. Comforting future coaches, he’s also good defensively and plays with an edge.

Martone compared himself to Matthew Tkachuk and Corey Perry. Those aren’t bad comparables as Tkachuk is a back-to-back Stanley Cup winner, while Perry has helped his teams to five straight Stanley Cup Finals.

He is at his core a playmaker, rather than a scorer, but his ability to connect and control the team game stands out among even the top of the class. That is why Martone will most likely be a top-five pick Friday when the NHL hosts its first decentralized draft with teams in their home offices, but the top prospects gathered at the Peacock Theater in Los Angeles.

Martone played a couple of games for Team Canada in the 2025 IIHF World Championships. He didn’t register a point, but did score a goal in one of the tournament warm-up games. He also developed a good relationship with Penguins general manager Kyle Dubas.

As PHN spoke with Dubas at the NHL Scouting Combine in May, Martone walked by and proudly pointed to his results for Dubas, who volleyed with a good-natured retort. It was obvious that if Martone were available, the Penguins would be interested. However, the Penguins fell to ninth overall with a late-season winning streak, then fell to 11th with the highly improbable NHL Lottery results in which the 10th-place New York Islanders were the longshot winners, followed by the 14th-place Utah Mammoth winning the next lottery to vault to fourth.

Dubas has not yet been successful in his attempts to move up to select Martone. The Penguins will have to leap into the top four picks to do so, which will be expensive. Matt Meagher put together the highlight reel and scouting video for Hockey Now.