I Want To Be A Top Player In This League One Day

MARYLAND
HEIGHTS, Mo. — Don’t
mistake Dylan Holloway the wrong way. The St. Louis Blues forward is
beyond grateful to be healthy and skating 100 percent for the first
time since what turned out to be an ugly injury that derailed a
fantastic first season in the Gateway City.

But
after putting up 63 points (26 goals, 37 assists) in 77 games in his
first full NHL season after coming to the Blues via an offer sheet
that was not matched by the Edmonton Oilers – along with defenseman
Philip Broberg – in August of 2024, the 23-year-old
first-round pick in the 2020 NHL Draft (No. 14 overall) feels like
there’s more to be had.

Plenty
more.

“I’ve
got pretty lofty goals for myself,” Holloway
said Thursday when the Blues opened training camp.
“When you kind of set out to be a hockey player, you just want to
make it to the NHL and now that I’ve been in the NHL for a bit, I
want everything I can get. I’ve got some pretty lofty goals for
myself. I want to be a top player in this league one day. It’s a
goal that I know takes a lot of work, but something that I’m going
to strive for.

“Last
year I was fortunate enough to get some bounces and things were going
in, but at the same time too, I felt pretty confident in my ability.
After a big summer this summer, I feel even more confident. I’m
excited to get things going and even prove it to myself and prove to
everybody that I can be a top guy in this league.”

Holloway
didn’t go as far as saying he wants to be a Connor McDavid or a
Nathan MacKinnon or any of the other top-end echelon players in the
NHL today, he just feels he can be among them. Some pretty lofty
goals from what appears to be a very confident player, and why
wouldn’t he be after things finally took off for him last season,
given an opportunity in a full time role after 89 games over two
seasons in limited roles with the Oilers.

But
not only is there a team that’s motivated heading into a new
season, there’s a player that’s also motivated, especially since
he was rendered helpless and not being able to perform with his
teammates in that excruciating seven-game series loss against the
Winnipeg Jets in the Western Conference First Round.

“There’s
not much I can do at that point. It sucked,” Holloway
said.
“You go all year, the team was working so hard to make the
playoffs, we go on that really special run and it takes everybody. It
was such a good environment in the room, a good vibe. To all of the
sudden to not be a part of that was definitely a big shock and it
sucked. You care so much throughout the year and you care so much
come playoff time. To not be able to put your body on the line with
the guys was tough, but I kind of had to come to peace with those
terms and try to be a good teammate.”

It
fell off the rails for Holloway April 3 in a 5-4 overtime win against
the Pittsburgh Penguins. The result was tearing the oblique off the
hip bone. It required surgery and his season was essentially done in
an instant.

“That
was brutal, that sucked,” Holloway
said.
“I guess there’s no way to sugarcoat it. It was awful. I had to
come to peace with the terms of not playing. The only way I could
help out is just be a good teammate and support the boys. That’s
what I tried to do.”

A
fairytale
season with a brutal ending, but now Holloway is 100 percent and
looking as sharp as ever.

“It
looks like he didn’t even miss anything. It was good,” Blues
coach Jim Montgomery said.
“His second and third effort, I think is contagious. He was really
good today. It was a pleasant, pleasant day to see him back out
there.”

Holloway
opened camp skating with Brayden Schenn and 2025 first-round pick
Justin Carbonneau looking to pick up where he left off.

“You
always need guys with high work ethic and high compete levels, and he
definitely has that,” Schenn
said of Holloway.
“Secondly, he’s dynamic, he’s a good skater, he’s a good
puck-handler, he has a heck of a release and a shot.

“I
think just the biggest thing with those guys if I even remember when
I was young is like you get a chance early, maybe it doesn’t go the
way you want in Edmonton and now you get a chance here and it’s a
completely different slate with a new opportunity and new eyes on
you, and he was able to take off and run with it. There’s pressure
on all of us, but that’s part of pro sports. I don’t think we
have to be hard on guys where they expect and demand a completely
different Dylan Holloway. I think if he sticks to what he does and
how he approaches his day to day and doesn’t worry about the
results, worries about the day to day, he’s going to be totally
fine.”

Holloway
skated in a career-high 16:49 per game, getting top assignments the
more the season went and earning the trust from the coaching staff.
And for him to become one of those top-end league players, will come
more opportunity.

“Potentially
penalty killing for us, eat more minutes,” Montgomery
said.
“He has an iron lung. It doesn’t seem like he gets tired. He just
keeps
skating. He’s the Energizer Bunny out there. I guess for him, it’s
developing his 200-foot game and continuing to evolve as a dynamic
offensive player.”

Holloway
has turned into an absolute bargain for the Blues when he signed a
two-year, $4.58 million ($2.29 million average annual value) contract
that has one year left on it, then can become a restricted free agent
next summer.

The
Blues know what they have, so don’t fret, he isn’t going
anywhere.

“He
and I talked last couple of days,” Blues
general manager Doug Armstrong said.
“He’s in a great place physically. Mentally he’s even in a better
place. When I talked to he and Broberg about the whirlwind things
they did last year, end of July they’re Edmonton Oilers and then for
a week they’re NHL property and then they’re St. Louis Blues. Then
coming here and have to deal with the expectations: St. Louis
overpaid, the other team should’ve kept them. There was all that
debris that they had to deal with and for them to play as well as
they did last year … Holloway took it to a level of his draft
position. He was a top pick and he played like a top pick, as Broberg
did. If we’re going to be a good team, Holloway has to replicate
that, or very close to replicating that. Not just point wise. He’s
probably the hardest-working player we have in our organization right
now. You come in here on a Sunday morning and you think you have the
place to yourself and then you hear pucks clanking and he’s in the
shooting room. He’s a hockey player, he loves it, he works extremely
hard. His conditioning is off the charts. Better person than player,
too. He’s the full package of what you would want in an organization
and we learned that after we got him. You don’t know those things
until you get them in the room. But he’s a core piece of what we’ve
got going and he wants to be a core piece, too.”

As
for that next contract, Holloway said, “Honestly
right now, I’m not too worried about it. I’m just focused on
playing hockey. That’s one thing I’ll let Army and my agent kind
of take care of. That’s why you’ve got an agent, they take care
of that stuff and you just play hockey. That’s what I’m worried
about.

“…
I
feel good. I was fortunate enough that the injury healed faster than
I anticipated. I was able to get a good summer in and skating 100
percent and working out 100 percent. Trying to get better and not
thinking about the oblique. I feel pretty good right now and just
hope to keep it going.”

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MARYLAND
HEIGHTS, Mo. — Doug
Armstrong’s not looking for gifts; he’s not looking for
accolades.