The World Juniors are just around the corner and TSN’s NHL draft guru Craig Button is doing a series of short profiles on the players who are candidates to be on Team Canada for this year’s tournament.
Here’s what Button had to say about Edmonton Oilers 2020 first-rounder Dylan Holloway,
“Dylan Holloway will bring a skill and power element regardless of where he plays. His versatility has been demonstrated time and time again. He can play center ice, he can play wing. He can play up your lineup and he can play down your lineup. He can play in all different types of situations. His skating is excellent. He’s got speed, quickness, power, and once he uses that to create advantages for himself, it becomes very difficult for opponents to regain an advantage on him because that size and power is utilized very very well. He attacks defenders, he attacks the net, and he’s invested from a competitive standpoint everywhere on the ice.
My one big takeaway, Dylan Holloway can switch from skill to power and power to skill in a fleeting moment.”
I liked him early last season as he reminded me of Anders Lee a bit. However, I think a lot of fans were down on the selection of Holloway because he didn’t quite have the jaw-dropping numbers some were expecting him to have after being named the MVP of the AJHL as a 17yr old. His NCAA club featured former NHL first-round picks players like Alex Turcotte (LA) and Cole Caufield (MTL), and K’Andre Miller (NYR), and was coached by former NHLer Tony Granato. Yet, success wasn’t to be had and it was a mess from the get-go.
That said, Turcotte (whose dad, Alfie, had a cup of coffee with the Oilers’ AHL club in Nova Scotia back in the day) signed with LA and that opened up a door for Holloway to become the top centre on the club. The Bragg Creek native grabbed that opportunity and has run with it. In his first two games with Wisconsin this year, Holloway has already amassed 25% of his goal production from the season prior. That’s just a fancy way of saying he only scored eight goals last season and he has two so far.
The Athletic’s prospect expert Corey Pronman has Holloway in the category of “Strong Consideration” for this year’s edition of Team Canada that will compete for the gold in Edmonton. Alongside him, Pronman listed other players like Alex Newhook (COL), Cole Perfetti (WPG), Connor Zary (CGY), Peyton Krebs (VGK), and Phil Tomasino (NSH).
I think Holloway should be a lock. Unless he’s found unfit to play, cutting him after all he’s had to go through to get to the camp, would be a massive mistake and would surely piss off a lot of powerful people. He’s exactly the kind of player you want on this team. He’ll be a momentum shifter during the tournament, mark my words.
This is what Mr. Pronman had this to say about Holloway’s chances of making Team Canada for this year’s World Juniors,
Holloway and Newhook are in tough positions given they didn’t play in either scrimmage because they were isolated from the group after entering Canada from the United States. But they have strong histories with Hockey Canada, and have the toolkits and performances with their club teams to merit a spot.
As an Oilers fan, I’m feeling jacked about the future of the club. The pipeline is finally starting to fire out some legit NHL prospects.
I mean, think about it. Edmonton has Rafa Lavoie causing absolute terror for goaltenders in the Allsvenskan. They’ve got defenceman Evan Bouchard in the same division producing offense like he’s back in junior. Ryan McLeod and Philip Broberg are getting regular shifts for their clubs in the Swiss league and the SHL respectively. Look, Phil Kemp, a defensive defenceman, signs a contract with Edmonton and a week later he’s already putting up points in Vasby. Tyler Benson is a point-per-game player in the Swiss second division, and Dmitri Samorukov is the KHL’s +/- leader whilst playing a huge role for his club there. Then we’ve got goalie Olivier Rodrigue stonewalling the Austrians to boot!
In two seasons, there’s a good chance that we could see as many as five of the players I talked about above on the Oilers main squad. The benefit of having all of those ELCs on the club will be through the roof and right about the time the club is challenging for Western Conference titles no less.
The future is bright in Northern Alberta.
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