Porter Martone and Spencer Gill got on the board in Canada’s WJSS opener

Flyers prospects Porter Martone and Spencer Gill showing well in their first bits of action at the World Junior Summer Showcase.

It’s officially World Junior Summer Showcase season for all of the prospect watchers around here, and while things kicked off this weekend and we’ve already seen the Flyers’ prospects representing the organization on each of the American, Finnish, and Swedish teams stepping up, we’ve had to wait a little longer still to see the Canadians get into the mix.

Canada played their first game of the tournament last night — a split squad scrimmage that was meant to help set them up to see a few more faces before trimming their roster down to one team for the remainder of the tournament — and we got to see our first glimpses of both Porter Martone and Spencer Gill in action on that stage. And while the game was a scrimmage and not at quite the same level of intensity that we saw through the first two days of action, both of these players got themselves off to strong starts, all the same.

Martone, playing on the top line for the red team, was certainly given a big opportunity to shine in this first bit of game action, and he made the most of it. He picked up his first point of the tournament early, assisting on his team’s first goal of the game after getting the first almost-look on the play to get the puck into their offensive zone. And his game, on the whole, was a high-event one — Martone got another couple of good looks, another couple of similar almost chances where he ran out of real estate to get a shot off, and also made a quick trip down the tunnel in the second period after getting blown up in the corner (though he finished the game with seemingly no issues). The timing didn’t seem to be all the way there for him in this one, but there was no shortage of effort, and he’s sure to pop in a big way when the bounces start going his way.

https://x.com/madelinecampbll/status/1950332438905061773

And then Gill, despite playing in a depth role for the red team, penciled in on their third pair, put together an altogether very solid showing. Across the whole of the game, he stepped up with a few nice breakups in the defensive zone, showed sound body positioning, and while the goal he scored was impressive in and of itself, it only happened because he made a nice play at the opposite blue line to deny an entry and get play moving in the other direction.

It’s nice to see these players already showing well, but it comes with differing levels of necessity — Martone certainly will want to make a good impression to help influence his future usage, but with his skill as a player and the draft pedigree he’s bringing along with him, he’s all but a lock to make the main tournament roster in some capacity, but someone like Gill has been on the outside looking in up to this point, and with his final year of eligibility looming, he’ll be giving it his all to impress and make a real run at a spot on the team. But, there’s still a lot of tournament left in front of us, and even more time before those final World Junior Championship rosters are set, and it will be interesting to see how these two continue to fare as we move into their games against the other national teams.