Porter Martone is going to Michigan State. Reports broke Monday morning, and then the sixth overall pick in the 2025 NHL Draft made it official himself via Instagram that afternoon.
Anywhere else in the NHL, and this is business as usual. A high first-round pick and top prospect is going to college for at least a season to continue their development, sometimes with the hope that, late in the year, they'll be ready enough to sign and actually get a few professional games in.
It's a perfectly sensible route to take for an 18-year-old skater who one day hopes to be a star, and for the organization that picked him to be a part of their future, too.
But this is the Philadelphia Flyers. It can seemingly never be that cut and dry, nor be without fans relating it back to some kind of wound from the past and raising concern.
The wound in this situation is still relatively fresh, too: Cutter Gauthier.
Three summers ago, at the 2022 NHL Draft, the American power forward prospect was taken fifth overall by the Flyers, and figured to be an early key piece for a roster that woefully needed to get younger and more skilled.
He was already committed to play at Boston College, but at the time, then general manager Chuck Fletcher and the old front-office regime were OK with that. Gauthier would play a freshman season for the Eagles, then the Flyers would see about having him turn pro with what was left of the NHL schedule, the thought went.
But then Fletcher was fired down the stretch, current GM Danny Brière was appointed in the interim and eventually permanently, and Gauthier stayed in school.
At first glance – and aside from the typical craziness that accompanies a front-office shakeup – nothing seemed outwardly out of the ordinary. Gauthier wasn't at the Flyers' prospect development camp later that summer, which raised eyebrows, but "too much hockey" was the explanation he offered as to why following a run with Team USA in the IIHF World Championship, and things settled down for a while after (well, publicly).
Eric Bolte/Imagn Images
No matter the outcome, the Cutter Gauthier trade and the fallout from it will be a sticking point for Flyers fans for years.
Gauthier skated into his sophomore season at Boston College, then went on a run to gold with the U.S. in the World Junior Championship over the holidays, with Flyers fans keeping an eye out every step of the way while the team itself was in the middle of a surprise playoff push.
Then on a Monday night, just seconds after puck drop in a home game against rival Pittsburgh, Gauthier wasn't a Flyer anymore. He was traded to the Anaheim Ducks. Brière met with the press during intermission and told them that Gauthier had cut off contact with the organization, and that at some point, he stopped wanting to be a Flyer. So fresh off of World Juniors, they shipped him out when his value was arguably at its highest.
Philadelphia, on the whole, felt slighted, and didn't forget.
But it all happened so suddenly, with the trouble having brewed so quietly.
So Flyers fans felt burned from having a major college prospect go from in then out of the picture, too, in what appeared from the outside to be a matter of minutes.
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That's where the fear for some will stem from Martone going to college, for however justified that rationale really is. Sergei Bobrovsky, Jay O'Brien, German Rubstov, Nolan Patrick, Ryan Ellis, Gauthier, and going back further, Justin Williams and Patrick Sharp, all those steps gone south have conditioned Flyers fans to worry, even though those have all happened under entirely separate circumstances, but nevertheless in a continued string of misfortune.
It all makes it tough to look at Martone going to Michigan State without complete unease.
The extreme likelihood is that Martone taking the college route will probably be fine. The decision appeared to be well communicated between all parties, per AllPHLY's Charlie O'Connor, and a year for Martone with the Spartans will also have him skating alongside and building chemistry with fellow Flyers prospect and second-round pick Shane Vansaghi.
Plus, by all accounts from the draft last month and development camp this month, Martone wants to be a Flyer and isn't just saying it.
This should work. Ideally, with Martone in an orange and black uniform by late March or the beginning of April.
But this is the Philadelphia Flyers. Fans have been conditioned over the years, over the decades, to expect that it can never be that cut and dry.
It'll be fine, probably, but not completely until Martone signs on the dotted line.
Nick Tricome/PhillyVoice
New prospect Porter Martone at Flyers development camp on Wednesday in Voorhees.
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