Blue-chipper Holloway injects excitement into Oilers' camp

Training camp is the worst.

Without a doubt, it's usually the most tedious, protracted and belaboured part of the entire season.

All of the players have been in top shape for months. The veterans need only three games to get fully up to speed. The team is 95 per cent picked based on contracts and any open spots are largely inconsequential places at the bottom end of the lineup.

Every once in a while, though, something comes along and injects some genuine drama in the pre-season. That something, of course, is Dylan Holloway.

A blue-chip prospect and former NCAA star, Holloway is fully expected to be an impact player for the Oilers one day. It's just that nobody really expected that that day might be Oct. 12 when the regular season opens against Vancouver.

But Holloway is doing exactly what a player with his natural abilities, in his position, is supposed to do — force his way into the conversation and make it very difficult for the organization to tell him he's not ready yet.

He has single-handedly made this year's training camp worth watching, even worth getting excited about. This is a kid who might actually be able to step into one of the best top sixes in the NHL and produce.

And this is no longer a situation, as Connor Mcdavid said last week, where the Oilers are so thin that first-round picks are gifted roster spots out of necessity. Holloway has earned his keep so far, blending skill and tenacity and already drawing high praise from potential linemates who seem more than ready to have him on their wing.

That Holloway lined up next to Leon Draisaitl and Zach Hyman for Monday's game against Vancouver (putting up three goals and an assist) and was with Mcdavid and Hyman for Wednesday's rematch in Abbotsford tells you how serious head coach Jay Woodcroft is about this. That's premium ice late in the pre-season.

If Holloway is for real, it's a massive score for the cap-stretched Oilers. A top-six winger with size and speed who thinks the game at an elite level and has a $925,000 cap hit is like winning the lottery.

The excitement doesn't end there, either, in this rarest of compelling NHL training camps.

Both of Edmonton's goaltenders from last September are gone, meaning Jack Campbell and Stuart Skinner are not only a clean slate, but an unproven tandem. How they perform is even more important than what Holloway does. No good goalies, no Stanley Cup run.

So far they're both off to good starts. Skinner already turned in some rock-solid performances (like the 33-save win over Winnipeg last Saturday) while Campbell stopped 28 of 30 shots in a third-star performance Monday against the Canucks.

It's a long season and the true measure of goaltending is consistency, but Oilers fans can exhale for now.