By prioritizing size throughout the draft, starting with Porter Martone, the Rick Tocchet Flyers revealed what kind of team they strive to be

The Flyers are taking a page from the Florida Panthers' book by making a concerted effort to get bigger and meaner. If all goes right, they may have found their Matthew Tkachuk and Sam Bennett, too.

The Flyers grabbed 6-foot-3 winger Porter Martone with the sixth pick. The Brampton captain compares his game to Matthew Tkachuk in terms of his playmaking and bite.Read moreDamian Dovarganes / AP

by Jackie Spiegel

Published June 29, 2025, 5:00 a.m. ET

ATLANTIC CITY — It was a pretty big two days for the Flyers.

Pun intended.

By the time they wrapped things up at the 2025 NHL draft, seven of Philly’s nine draft picks between Friday and Saturday are listed at over 6-foot-1. And some of these guys aren’t just tall, they are behemoths.

“We were conscious of it,” assistant general manager Brent Flahr said with a chuckle on Saturday. “To be honest, those picks that came back-to-back-to-back, we weren’t just going for size there. [They were] players we targeted, and that was more coincidence that all of them happened to be that size there. Something that certainly we’re not against when we’re drafting.”

In the first round, the Flyers took winger Porter Martone (6-3, 205 pounds) and center Jack Nesbitt (6-5, 185).

To start Day 2, in the second round, they selected right-shot defenseman Carter Amico (6-6, 231) and forwards Jack Murtagh (6-1, 198), Shane Vansaghi (6-3, 212), and Matthew Gard (6-5, 194), before grabbing right-shot defenseman in 6-5, 201-pound Luke Vlooswyk in the fifth round. The two “tiny” players are 5-11 forwards Max Westergård, also taken in the fifth round, and Nathan Quinn in the sixth.

But while size was a running thread throughout the draft, “high-compete” was top of mind, too. As Flahr has told The Inquirer in the past, when John Tortorella was the head coach, it was important to find guys who had it because it’s a characteristic that is hard to teach. The mindset has not shifted with the arrival of Rick Tocchet.

“You watch the playoffs, it’s a grind,” Flahr said. “To be able to get to the NHL, you have to have a tremendous work ethic. And then to have success in it, you have to have that side of it. So, the guys we drafted — and it’s part of what Tocc wants, it’s part of what [president Keith Jones] and Danny [Brière, the general manager] want — we want competitive people, and I think we did a pretty good job of that today.”

It is clear that the “New Era of Orange” is starting to take shape and while Brière has often stated that the plan isn’t changing, maybe, just maybe, this was the plan all along. That while some may think the Flyers will be a playoff team down the road, the road may be rising to meet them sooner.

But the best part is that the Flyers have not lost who they are at their core. They are a mean and physically demanding team. So of course, Philly also got gritty with it on Day 2, especially with the addition of physical defensemen Amico and Vlooswyk, Murtagh, a versatile forward who calls himself a “high-end workhorse,” the Adam Lowry-esque center Gard, and Vansaghi, a power forward at right wing.

The Inquirer has been high on Vansaghi, a teammate of free-agent signee Karsen Dorwart at Michigan State, since the NHL scouting combine. As he said back then, “I play one way and one way only, and it’s big and physical, and it’s a hard-nosed game, and it’s in your face, and I’m not going to change the way I play.”

The Flyers’ brass will love that.

“I don’t know if you had a chance to watch [Vansaghi] at Michigan State this year, he gets that whole arena going,” Flahr said of a kid who compares his game to Josh Anderson but could follow in the footsteps of Garnet Hathaway, too.

“He’s a big, big kid. He plays a certain way, and there were not many players like him in this draft, or many drafts. So, I think he’s got some work to do to get to the NHL, but once he does, he’ll be a fan favorite and a very welcome teammate.”

Flahr also says that in the end, it doesn’t matter where a player gets drafted because it’s all about what happens now. And for Amico, that is more than true after he missed most of the season with a major knee injury (fracture kneecap) that required two surgeries. But he’s mean and nasty and can skate for a man his size, too.

The playoffs showcased that big, heavy bodies can lift Stanley Cups. So why wouldn’t the Flyers draft heavy guys — the lightest of the group, Westergård, is listed at 168 pounds and is one of just three guys under 200 pounds. Add in the guys who say they play like Matthew Tkachuk (Martone and Murtagh), Seth Jones (Amico), and Lowry (Gard), and there’s some bite there, too.

“We’re elated with the first round and then the second round, it turned out we were very happy,” Flahr said.

Now it’s time to get to work.