If the Canadiens are looking for a forward with the 16th pick at the NHL Draft, Dylan Holloway would be an excellent choice. A pro-size player with very good speed, he plays a two-way style at centre and can also play left wing. Holloway was the youngest player on his college team as a freshman and the Habs can use more depth on the wing in their pipeline, especially someone with top-six potential. Similar to Ryan Poehling during his first college season, Dylan was given the third line centre role and excelled.
Bio
Position: C/LW
Shoots: L
DOB: 2001-09-23
Height: 6′ 1/4″
Weight: 203 lbs
Rankings
CSB (North American): 12
Elite Prospects: 18
ISS: 20
McKeens: 26
Hockey Prospectus: 29
Future Considerations: 15
The Hockey News: 13
Recrutes: 21
TSN (Button): 14
TSN (McKenzie): 16
The Athletic (Pronman): 14
Statistics
Scouting Report
It’s easy to believe Montreal scouts and management took in several University of Wisconsin hockey games in 2019-20 to keep tabs on Cole Caufield after selecting him with their first-round pick in June 2019. Since Caufield was rated higher and he surprisingly dropped to the Habs at their #15 spot, they wanted to focus on his progress. While there, they had sufficient time to scout Holloway as a freshman. Although Holloway scored only 17 points (Caufield had 36 points to lead the team), his shutdown role limited his offensive opportunities. Much of his faceoff starts were in his defensive zone. During the 2018-19 season, Holloway was the 2nd highest scorer in the AJHL and won both the AJHL MVP award and the Canadian Junior Hockey League Player of the Year award. The previous winner of both those awards was Cale Makar.
Dylan has the tendencies of a power forward with a good mix of skill. He’s capable of making big hits when the play calls for it and he’s smart enough to focus on offence when that’s the right call. During the last ten games of this season, Dylan’s offence began to come together as he scored five goals and four assists. Along with his skating ability which many rank among the top five in this year’s draft, his competitiveness has a similar ranking among this draft class. Combining that with his skating and hockey sense, he can be a serious forechecking threat. His wrist shot is decent and needs some work, but his puck handling is top-notch. He showed good faceoff ability at times. It’s difficult to predict if he will eventually become a centre or a winger, but there’s a strong chance he will end up on a second line at best in the pros. At worst, he’ll become a superior third-line player.
Timeline
There’s work to be done still for Holloway at the college level. Continuing his point scoring rate the way he ended the season should be a feasible goal. He will likely become Wisconsin’s top centre next season, with Caufield as his winger. If that occurs then his offensive numbers are bound to improve and he’ll likely become one of the top scorers on his team, and perhaps his conference. If this were a normal year, he would have been invited to Canada’s U20 team training camp this fall and had a chance to compete at the World Junior Championship. With the NCAA notifying that athletics programs would not start this fall, it’s difficult to predict if top rated players will decide to leave college to transfer to junior leagues or sign pro contracts. I expect Holloway will remain in college at least a season to continue his development although if he stays for two years, it would not be bad for his development.