CAMP: Holloway hoping to stake claim to regular Oilers role

EDMONTON, AB – The bright lights of Hollywood are expected to shine even brighter in Oil Country this NHL season.

Forward Dylan Holloway, known simply as ‘Hollywood’ in the Oilers locker room, took last year’s preseason by storm with four goals and two assists – including a hat-trick – over six exhibition games as the 21-year-old winger worked to find his footing at the NHL level after wrist surgery limited his first professional season to only 33 AHL games with the Bakersfield Condors.

Despite those strong early returns to his NHL career, some of the Oilers veterans who were locks for the opening-day roster were hesitant to bestow the ‘Hollywood’ moniker, originally coined by former defenceman Tyson Barrie, upon the up-and-coming rookie forward who carries with him the pedigree and swagger of being a first-round pick by the Oilers in 2021.

"No, no, no. He's got a long way to go to earn that nickname with me," Kane said before Holloway’s hat-trick against the Vancouver Canucks last preseason. “I think just continue to have that confidence and belief in himself, which I don't think he needs a lot of help with.”

Coming into this year’s Oilers Training Camp, ‘Hollywood’ has fully earned his title and his potential as a young forward who can find a permanent place, and a significant role, in Edmonton’s Stanley Cup-hopeful locker room this season after accruing 51 more games of NHL experience and recording three goals and six assists in ’22-23 – including his first NHL goal on Broadway at Madison Square Garden against the New York Rangers.

“Yeah, I'm glad I earned the nickname,” he said. “I know he told me I got to earn it, but yeah, it feels pretty good and to have that kind of that banter with your teammates.”

“I want to step up and help the team as best I can, so I’ve just got to work as hard as I can and learn from the older guys and try and help out.”

Holloway enters a pivotal season for both himself and the Edmonton Oilers more confident and composed than ever after his experience competing at last year’s Training Camp and throughout the Oilers regular season, where the winger believes he earned the trust of Head Coach Jay Woodcroft and learned plenty about what’s required from him away from the puck.

“I think just playing the right way,” he said, discussing last season’s takeaways. “I know that sounds pretty cliché, but you've got to limit turnovers, be good in the D zone and kind of gain the coach's trust. Once you do that, you can kind of play a bit freer and try and make plays and get back to kind of the player I was in college and junior.”

Additionally, the winger is coming off a productive offseason where he lost a bit of weight but gained extra strength utilizing some of the lifting-focused workouts he was more accustomed to as a member of the University of Wisconsin Badgers.

"After you play so many games, you're carrying a little bit of extra weight and you just feel a bit heavier," he said. "So this year going into camp, I wanted to be just a little bit lighter. I feel like I can skate longer, and I know if we ever get into back-to-backs, it'll be a little bit better leg conditioning-wise."

Holloway is taking nothing for granted as one of a handful of young Oilers prospects who’ll be looking to crack the opening-night roster and contribute over the course of the season to an Oilers team with sky-high ambitions of lifting the Stanley Cup.

“I wouldn't say it's a pressure, but it's definitely something that is a goal and something that I want to do,” he said. “I want to step up and help the team as best I can, so I just have to work as hard as I can and learn from the older guys and try and help out.”

Holloway has formed a bantering familiarity, friendship and understudy set-up with forward Evander Kane, who’s taken the Calgary, AB product under his wing since he first arrived in Oil Country as a rookie fresh off concluding his NCAA career with the University of Wisconsin Badgers.

“Hollywood and I, and I'll call him Hollywood this year, we have a good relationship and I think he's a player that obviously has a great skill set,” Kane said. “But you saw spurts of it last year – he isn't afraid to play the game in a physical way. You saw him have a fight there in Seattle. I was in the press box for that and watched that, so you see the bite that he has in his game and I think that accompanied by his skill set, it could make him a really good player.”

“I think the biggest thing for him is just maybe understanding sometimes less is more in certain situations on the ice and using his shot to his advantage, because I think he has one of the best shots on the team.”

That deadly shot registers in the locker room as the winger’s most dangerous asset, with Holloway hoping not to relive the experience of looking Kane off on one occasion during practice for a scoring opportunity – one he feels he’s still trying to shake off.

“I know last year I looked him off one time in practice, and that was a big no-no,” he laughed. “He let me hear about it for quite a while, but this year, I'll definitely look him off a couple of times.”