Aside from a couple battles on the fourth line, the Oilers roster looks mostly set. However there is one prospect who reportedly is going to be given every opportunity to make the club. Dylan Holloway was drafted 14th overall by the Oilers in 2020 and the young centre/winger could be NHL ready sooner rather than later. Last season Holloway improved heavily and produced a new career high in goals in college in 12 fewer games with the University of Wisconsin and went from 9 assists to 24. Holloway plays a heavier game, is responsible in his own end and can produce. All the above would make him a huge asset for the Oilers bottom six... if he is ready to play.
The challenge for having Holloway in the NHL immediately is where he would fit in the lineup. Holloway is certainly good enough to be a fourth line winger or centre but I can't imagine Ken Holland would be satisfied with his first round pick playing 8 minutes a night, instead of playing top line minutes in the AHL. There is no reason to rush Holloway yet. In order for Holloway to start in the AHL it would likely need to be at minimum a third line role. Reportedly the team would much rather have Holloway as a centre in the long term. That puts him in direct competition with Derek Ryan and Ryan McLeod. Ryan is a veteran and great defensive player who while he struggles to finish himself, can make solid passes to his linemates. McLeod meanwhile is a fast and dynamic young player but has not yet shown any ability to finish or produce but it is still extremely early in his career. Through training camp I expect Tippett to work hard with finding a good spot for McLeod to put him into the best position to succeed.
In order for Holloway to crack the roster as a centre he will need to show that he can be a better offensive option than McLeod or Ryan while still being able to handle defensive starts. Like most players in Tippett's bottom six that means Holloway is going to need to be able to penalty kill. If Tippett decides to count on Derek Ryan for those minutes than that should almost guarantee Holloway is AHL bound. McLeod will get a spot as a fourth line centre over Holloway unless the former completely falls apart.
The alternative could be Holloway starting the year as a winger. The soon to be 20 year old is a left shot making it more likely to play him as a left winger. On the left side right now there is currently Hyman, RNH, and Foegele all ahead of him. His chances don't look good there.
That is unless we make a couple of assumptions. While Hyman did play on the left side with Matthews most of last season, it was also due to there being another right shot in Marner on his opposite wing. What if Hyman is moved to the right side instead? With Hyman on the right side, the roster could look something like this:
Foegele-McDavid-Hyman RNH-Draisaitl-Puljujarvi Holloway-Ryan-Yamamoto Shore-Ryan-Kassian Archibald
Some forget that Foegele did spend time playing with the likes of Aho and Svechnikov and performed well in that role. Hyman is kept with McDavid and Puljujarvi is bumped down with Draisaitl to be a trigger man on that line. Meanwhile Yamamoto is brought down and given a chance to succeed in lesser competition and still be the aggressive forechecker that he is alongside another aggressive player in Holloway. Being far more optimistic, Holloway could absolutely level the competition in training camp and pre-season and find himself in a role in the top six on the wing. Oilers fans should be excited because of the number of ways that this lineup could come together.
Having said all of that, expectations should still be tempered with Holloway. We have seen time and time again, a young player succeed in pre-season only to be held off the scoresheet once the games actually mean something. The far more likely outcome is that Holloway comes into camp, looks steady and shows some flashes but is ultimately sent down to the AHL. Injuries happen all the time though and if Holloway puts in the work he would likely be an early call up and like Yamamoto a couple years ago, once Holloway is up with the big club I have a feeling he won't be sent back down again.