Martone playing beyond his years for Flyers in Eastern 1st Round

PITTSBURGH -- Porter Martone prepared all season for this moment.

Not the goal he scored to give the Philadelphia Flyers a 1-0 lead against the Pittsburgh Penguins during the second period of Game 2 of the Eastern Conference First Round at PPG Paints Arena on Monday. He's scored at every level he's played.

It was the two wall battles he won that directly led to the goal. First he outraced Penguins defenseman Connor Clifton to a puck pushed up the boards on the left side of the Penguins zone, sliding it down to teammate Christian Dvorak. Then he was in the right place to support Dvorak battling with Clifton and backhanded the puck back to Dvorak below the goal line.

Those plays, and those moments, were what he worked on all season at Michigan State. The 25 goals and 50 points he had in 35 NCAA games were the result of the hard work he did getting stronger, getting smarter and being willing to do the dirty work in the hard areas.

"Playing like a power forward, you've got to be strong, you've got to be heavy on the puck and you've got to move your feet," Michigan State coach Adam Nightingale said. "You've got to be able to play with some pace and get to the inside, not play on the outside, and protect the puck. Really be great from the top of the circles down."

So far, Martone has put those college lessons to use.

"I think it's a big part of the game of hockey, winning walls, winning blue lines," he said. "That's something I knew I need to get better at if I wanted to make the jump. And coming here, that's really something they emphasize too, and it's something I worked on a lot this year."

The reward for those battles was the goal. As Dvorak skated the puck behind the Penguins net and passed to Travis Konecny on the right side of the crease, he found space on the left post. When Konecny's shot bounced off the skate of Pittsburgh defenseman Ryan Shea, Martone was in the right spot to one-time a backhand past Stuart Skinner.

"That goal, I call it scooter skating to get yourself in position," Flyers coach Rick Tocchet said. "That's a goal-scorer's goal. I know people think that maybe it's easy, but it wasn't because he had to scooter, the timing, all that stuff, on his backhand. That's what he does. He's a hockey player."

Martone is a hockey player who still is just 19 years old and played in just his 11th NHL game. And doing it in the crucible of the Stanley Cup Playoffs.

He's the first teenager in NHL history to score the game-winning goal in each of his first two career playoff games, and he's the third rookie in League history to score game-winning goals in consecutive games to start a postseason, joining Brett Hull in 1988 and Cooney Weiland in 1929.

"It's pretty impressive," said Konecny, who also arrived in the NHL as a 19-year-old, in 2016-17. He scored 11 goals in 70 games that season; Martone already has six in 11 combined regular-season and playoff games.

"There's not a lot of guys that can come in and make the impact that he has, especially in the games leading up to making the playoffs, how important those were. And for him to be able to jump in, I think it just speaks to not just his hockey ability, but how he wants to learn. He listens when we talk in the room, when we talk about little plays, you go out there and you see it's a switch the next shift. He learns quick."

There's also a confidence that permeates Martone. Where most young players would defer to their teammates, he had a team-high five shots on goal in his NHL debut on March 31 and hasn't stopped pushing the pace.

His four goals in the final nine games of the regular season tied for the Flyers lead, and his 32 shots on goal were eight more than his nearest teammate.

"I think that's a tendency you see with some of those guys that come in that age, you don't want to be kind of too selfish and you want to feed other guys," forward Owen Tippett said. "I struggled with that too, playing with some guys. But he's taken full control of it and doesn't pass up a shot."

Martone is quick to credit his teammates for helping him adjust to the NHL on the fly, but he always believed he was capable of having success.

"I made the jump because I thought I was ready, and I thought I could come help this team," he said. "They did a lot this year, they went through a lot of ups and downs, and when I came here they were really rolling, so I kind of hopped onto a moving train. It's been good ever since."

Can he keep it up as the games get tighter, starting with Game 3 in Philadelphia on Wednesday (7 p.m. ET; HBO MAX, SN-PIT, truTV, TNT, NBCSP, SNP, SNO, SNE, SN360, TVAS)? The Flyers lead the best-of-7 series 2-0 after their 3-0 victory Monday.

"The part that doesn't surprise me is the moment doesn't eat him up," Nightingale said. "He does have that moxie to him, where it's not like he's going to be starstruck. He's got a quiet confidence about him. I'd be lying if I said, 'Oh, I think he's going to have over a point a game,' but I knew he could go in there and make an impact."