3 Edmonton Oilers Who Are Set To Have A Breakout Season in 2024-25
Last season we saw the emergence of Zach Hyman with his 50 goals and Evan Bouchard's 82 points, who could be this season's breakout players.
Last season the Edmonton Oilers had a couple of players who had their own breakout the mains ones being Zach Hyman scoring 50 goals and Evan Bouchard in his first full season of quarterbacking the Oilers powerplay he also set personal best this past season in all statistical areas. Evan Bouchard went from a career high of 12 goals and 31 assist to a massive 18 goals and 34 assist, as mentioned about the addition to him on the powerplay helped those numbers.
For Hyman on the other hand, it was his massive jump in goals that made him a standout last season. Heading into last season Hyman had never scored more than 40 goals in a season, 36 the season prior was his highest. Last season though he went off to score 54 times having him finishing 3 in the NHL of goals last season.
Each season has its fair share of highs and lows for every player in the NHL. The question comes down to how high/low and how long the player stays in the zone. For example, last season for the Oilers a lot of the players struggled at the beginning of the season, and it showed up in their team record, but once players like Hyman got in the zone, they looked like they couldn't be stopped.
Going into this season there are going to be the players that are going to have a good season because we have seen them do it before, Connor McDavid and Leon Draisaitl for example. In this article though I am going to take a look at three players that are going to have their breakout season for the Oilers. Just because they are having a break out year doesn't necessarily mean they will be young players, player 3 on the list, it could just mean that the way things have aligned on this team that this could be their best season by far in the NHL.
Dylan Holloway
Edmonton Oilers 1st round selection in the 2020 NHL entry draft, Dylan Holloway was selected 14th overall that draft year. Since then, Holloway has only played in 89 regular season games for the Edmonton Oilers. On top of that, he also has played in 26 playoff games. In his 89 regular season games he has a total of 9 goals and 9 assists for a total of 18 points which puts him at 0.20 points/game. In his 26 playoff games, he has 5 goals and 2 assists for 7 points which is 0.28 points/game.
This is because Holloway plays minimal minutes due to his lack of experience. In the postseason when he averaged 11:30 of ice time which was slightly more than his season average of 11:22. You can see that he was gaining confidence in the playoffs and that Kris Knoblauch wasn't afraid to use him in high-pressure, high-intensity games. With that in mind, I think he is going to have a big bump in points this season.
Not only because he is going to be relied on more, but because he is going to have better linemates for the whole 82 games. Right now, it looks like Holloway will be playing left wing on a line with Adam Henrique and Corey Perry. Both of these players did not play the whole season with the Edmonton Oilers last season. No offence to Warren Foegele and Ryan McLeod, but I think these linemates are a better fit for Dylan Holloway.
With Holloway being only 22 years old, being put on a line with two NHL veterans should boost his game and allow him to learn all aspects of the game better. Having this experience added to his game should bump up his stats quite a bit. I would not be surprised to see Holloway score at least double his career-high in points this season. While his previous high is quite low cause he has yet to play a full season. Holloway getting something like 10 goals and 20 assists should not be out of the question.
Philip Broberg
After having an up-and-down career with the Edmonton Oilers, the 8th overall pick in the 2019 NHL entry draft, Philp Broberg looks to have finally landed a full-time spot on the NHL club following last season's playoff run. After playing only 12 NHL games last season Broberg took over Vincent Desharnais' spot in the lineup at the end of the Dallas Stars series and played in every game after that including all seven games in the Stanley Cup Finals.
In those playoff games, Broberg did not look out of place at all. He looked confident in his plays and fit right in on the blue line. Broberg's speed and puck-handling ability were the main reason that he took over for Desharnais in the playoffs, While Desharnais is a bigger tougher player his skill with the puck is not as good as Broberg's and that deep in the playoffs you want someone who can handle the puck better.
Looking forward to this coming season I would expect all the pairings to be the same as they were in game 7 of the cup final. That would put Broberg on the second pair with Darnell Nurse. This means that Broberg will be getting a whole 82 games playing against high-level competition. While the Ekholm/Bouchard pairing will be paired with the McDavid line most of the time that means the Broberg pairing will likely be tasked with shutting down the other team's top players when the opposition doesn't want to go skill versus skill.
This will be a good litmus test season for Broberg. While he played a good 10 games in the playoffs last season, the long drawn-out 82-game season is a completely different story. Not to mention that when you play more games the opposition starts to learn your tendencies, which means if a weakness is found in Broberg's game he will need to find a way to fix it mid-season. Not an easy task, but something that the one-time 8th overall pick should be able to do.
I look forward to seeing a full season of Broberg, watching him in the playoffs sparked my interest in seeing what he can do to help this Oilers team moving forward.
Viktor Arvidsson
Viktor Arvidsson, the two-time 30-goal scorer has clearly already found success in the NHL scoring 31 and 34 goals before in his career. Last season was derailed by an early injury where he played only 18 regular season games for the Los Angeles Kings. Now that he is a member of the Edmonton Oilers, I expect him to even surpass those numbers, in a very similar way to what Zach Hyman did.
Before coming to Edmonton and playing with the likes of McDavid and Draisaitl, Hyman peaked at 21 goals. Since then he has only improved his goal totals. There is no reason to think that Arvidsson can't do the exact same thing. Arvidsson has never played with a superstar player. Neither Nashville nor Los Angeles has a player that comes close to the skill level of either McDavid or Draisaitl.
Coming into this season I would expect Arvidsson to start on the second line with Leon Draisaitl. Draisaitl is one of the best passers in the NHL, so I would expect Arvidsson to capitalize on that chance to play with him. If he doesn't end up playing with Draisaitl then he will likely be playing with McDavid. With McDavid the same goes, as long as Arvidsson can capitalize on the scoring chances he gets there is no reason he can't score 40 goals this season.
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This coming season is going to be an exciting one. With all the new players signed and the players they were able to re-sign I believe this Oilers team is even stronger than the team last year. The fact that this team went all the way to game seven of the Stanley Cup Final and they have gotten better looks good for the upcoming season. If there was ever a year to win the Cup this is the season.
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