2025 NHL Draft Prospect Profile: Brady Martin
Upside Hockey's NHL Draft profile series: Aces Edition, Vol. 7
Upside Hockey’s prolific prospect profiler Trevor Curtis’s 2025 NHL draft eligible prospect profiles are all featured on our dedicated page for this with all featured prospects indexed in our table of contents alphabetically by last name. For the 2024 NHL Draft, for example, we had well over 200 prospect profiles completed. We’re now up to 185 profiles for this draft class!
Draft Thoughts (Aces Edition, Vol. 7):
RHC Brady Martin (6'0", 174lbs)
Sault Ste. Marie (OHL): 57gp/ 33g/ 39a/ 72pts, +25, 68 PIM
Greyhounds' pivot Brady Martin (ranked # 11 NA Skaters, # 13 by McKenzie, # 20 by Button) was hovering at a point-per-game pace for the majority of the season, but hit a hot-steak later in the campaign, with 31 points in his final 20 games- to finish with 72 points in 57 games. Martin's surge in production coincided with the Soo's rise up the standings; they were languishing in the OHL's basement in the first-half of the year, but finished in 14th-place out of 20 teams, and actually made the playoffs- but they were dispatched in 5 games by the Windsor Spitfires. The Soo were only able to score 11 goals in that series, and Martin was tied for second in scoring on the team, with 2 goals and 4 points in 5 games.
Brady Martin of the Soo Greyhounds. Photo by Natalie Shaver/OHL Images
Martin wore an "A" for the Greyhounds as a 17-year-old, and was also given a letter for Team Canada at the most-recent U-18 Championships, where he won gold while piling up 11 points in 7 games- good enough to tie for 5th in scoring in the tourney, first in plus/minus (+15), first in PIM (29), and 2nd on the team behind Braeden Cootes. At times, he looked dominant, and was often the best player on the ice when hopping over the boards.
I'm pretty sure that Martin was given a shot of the super-soldier serum- he's a menacingly physical, and uncommonly strong power-forward, at only 6 feet tall and 174 pounds. He's a warrior with unrelenting compete, but also owns a good skill-set and a rock-solid 200-foot game. Playing with frenetic pace, he sprints everywhere he needs to go, putting forth tireless motor and dogged determination, with a bit of brutality- he doesn't have to run all of his opponents over, he WANTS to.
Martin employs an intimidating physical presence to put his adversaries off-balance, strip them of possession, and punish them for having HIS puck- he's a force, with an ultra-competitive nature. There is no such thing as a bodycheck that he didn't finish, and many of the hits he throws are of the devastating, hard-and-heavy variety, making a huge impact on the game- he dominates down-low and along the boards, and launches himself into puck-battles. He is violent and resolute on the forecheck, hunting down puck-carriers like a heat-seeking missile to cause turnovers and uncontrolled play- opposing players look over their shoulders when he's on the ice.
Making him even more scary is his long, powerful stride that allows him to close distance on his targets quickly. Martin's stride is fluid and projectable, but he will need a bit of work on his explosiveness, and perhaps his top-gear. Still, he often looked like the fastest player at the U-18's, beating defenders wide, pushing opponents back on their heels, separating on the rush, and winning races to loose pucks all over the ice.
His determination and compete have something to do with that, as his energy and unmatchable pace give him a boost. He's quite nimble on his edges, with the ability to make tight turns, quick pivots, and sharp cuts. Martin's game is pretty simple, direct, and straightforward, without much flashiness or dynamism, and he's not much of a creator; his best asset in the offensive zone is perhaps his shot, and his finishing skills- he was 23rd in goals in the OHL.
With a goal-scorer's instincts and mentality, he has the propensity for sniffing out open space in the slot and around the crease; he will beat defenders wide to cut to the net, gets to the middle frequently, and sets up in front of the net to go to war with defenders, while setting up a screen, fishing for rebounds and loose pucks, and getting his stick on tips. Most of his goal-scoring success come from below the hash-marks, employing soft hands in-close, but he can unleash a bullet of a wrister while in-motion, with a lethal release from further out, and he wields a blistering one-timer.
Martin displays a modicum of playmaking vision and distribution skill, but creates a ton of opportunites for teammates just by funneling pucks to the net with his volume- shooting.
Martin is a safe pick because of his physical traits, mobility, and snarl, but also because he employs a detailed and dependable backcheck throughout all 200-feet of the ice, using his high-end defensive awareness and anticipation to give him the advantage. He's a puck-retrieval specialist, a rabid dog in 50/50 battles, and a play-killing machine.
He's all over the defensive-zone, winning races to loose pucks, breaking up plays, supporting teammates in possession contests, and showing up in prime positions to proactively make stops. He is more than hard to play against, can't be outworked or out-battled, and plays with urgency and intensity on the backcheck through the neutral zone.
Though he'll never be compared with Pavel Datsyuk, Martin displays excellent puck-skills, showing tight control at top-speed, smooth handling while pushing pace, and the ability to beat defenders and net-minders alike one-on-one with his bevy of dekes and dangles, blended with well-honed deception tactics to manipulate. He exerts infallible protection skills, and is hard on the puck. Martin has a lot of room to add more strength and bulk to his already freakishly-sturdy frame, and he will need it if he wants to play a similar style in the pros.
He needs to also keep upgrading his speed, but he looked better and better as the season wore on, with some saying that he could be picked in the top-10 of the draft.
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