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 at L.A. Live’s Peacock Theater in Los Angeles on June 27 and 28. The 18-year-old (6-foot-3, 208 pounds), who was born in Peterborough, Ontario, is No. 4 on NHL Central Scouting's midterm ranking of North American players for the 2025 draft. He finished the regular season as Brampton's leading scorer and was tied for seventh in the OHL with 98 points (37 goals, 61 assists) in 57 games as team captain. Brampton will face Oshawa in the best-of-7 first round of the OHL playoffs beginning Friday.

Hello hockey fans:

It was a good way to finish off the regular season (13-2-2 in their last 17 games) and now we're ready for the OHL playoffs. We started to play for each other, play with some urgency and really focus on the details, and I think that's why our record was so good down the stretch. Hopefully, it continues in the playoffs.

I feel momentum is contagious, so you definitely want to be entering the playoffs hot and playing the right way, and I think we are. I feel we've got the perfect momentum, and we've got the level heads and the perfect amount of confidence heading into this first round.

It was pretty cool to reach 200 career points in the Ontario Hockey League (204 points; 89 goals, 115 assists in 178 games through three seasons with Sarnia, Mississauga and Brampton). It's an honor, to be honest. But right now, I'm kind of focused on helping my team win every game in the playoffs. In a win against Brantford (7-2 on March 19) I also scored my second short-handed goal.

I saw an opportunity on the penalty kill after picking off a pass and then chipping it over the defenseman's stick. The puck sped ahead of me so I thought I would try to sell the shot and the goalie froze. I brought to my backhand, so it was nice to get one there.

We're playing Oshawa in our opening-round series. I think it's going to come down to the little details, and how hard we work. We know what we need to do. We've just got to focus on what we can control and if we give it 100 percent, I think we have the confidence in this group that we can get a series win.

Finally, I just want to give a shout out to all our fans who were at our games this season, cheering us on. It was cool to have a fan appreciation day in Brampton on March 23. We had a good crowd here (in a 4-1 win against Kingston). We had a lot of people come out and watch and it's kind of cool to see them backing us and supporting the Steelheads. We really hope to get even more home games in the playoffs and can go on a deep run so the fans can keep coming back to watch us.

That's all for this month. Thanks for the support.