When Porter Martone fell in the Flyers lap at pick number six, there was always a chance they were going to be unwitting participants in junior hockey’s newest study: how good can CHL imports really be at the college level?
Starting this season, players who had previously played in the Canadian Hockey League will be eligible to join NCAA programs. Before this year, CHL as a whole was considered a “professional league”, due to some players who have already signed their NHL entry-level deals.
So Martone, along with other CHL standouts like Michael Misa and Gavin McKenna, will be the first to make the jump to the collegiate ranks, with very little in the way of prior examples to measure up against.