Checking in on the St. Louis Blues' Offseason Additions (Part 3) - Dylan Holloway and the Joseph Brothers

Utilizing almost every roster-building strategy available (trades, free agency, and offer sheets), Doug Armstrong added 7 NHL-level players to the St. Louis Blues throughout the 2024 offseason. Before the end of the year, let's take a look at how they've performed so far this season. Are the Blues getting what they paid for?

In this short series of pieces, I'm pairing statistics and analytics with the good old-fashioned eye test to evaluate each player individually and determine how they're performing this season. In the third and final part of this series, I'll take a look at Dylan Holloway, Mathieu Joseph, and P.O. Joseph. Check out the first piece in this series, where I examined Philip Broberg and Radek Faksa. Also, take a look at the second piece in this series, where I evaluated Ryan Suter and Alexandre Texier.

Dylan Holloway

Who saw this coming? While the early season spotlight shone on Broberg, Dylan Holloway has been the star in recent weeks (aside from Jordan Kyrou and Robert Thomas, who have been incredible). Similar to Broberg, Holloway joined the Blues as a promising young player who had yet to put it all together. Overall, expectations were relatively low for Holloway this season, who looked to be a 3rd-line player for most of the year.

Playing in all 37 Blues games so far, Holloway has exploded offensively. His 13 goals rank 2nd on the Blues, and his 24 points rank 3rd on the team. He's also shooting at 15.1%, meaning his scoring rate isn't a fluke and could be sustainable. For reference, in 38 games last season with the Edmonton Oilers, Holloway only had 6 goals and 3 assists. It's safe to say he's taken a huge step offensively.

Holloway is (somewhat surprisingly) contributing well on defense, too. His 71 hits rank 5th on the Blues, while his 13 takeaways rank 3rd (and the most for any Blues forward). He's also blocking shots at an impressive level. His 26 blocks rank 6th on the Blues overall, and 2nd among Blues forwards.

Holloway has also accumulated the 2nd highest game score (25.58) on the team, trailing only Kyrou (Thomas isn't far behind Holloway either). Game score is a cumulative stat that accounts for player contributions on both sides of the puck, meaning Holloway has been a fantastic all-around player for St. Louis. He did get a bit of a boost in this metric with his first career hat trick against Detroit on December 23rd, but Holloway has been accumulating game scores at an impressive rate for over a month now.

Where Holloway stands out is his ability to generate scoring chances, expected goals, and high-danger looks. At 5-on-5, Holloway has six individual xGoals, 64 individual scoring chances, 69 shots, and 26 individual high-danger chances, ranking 2nd on the Blues in all four of those metrics. Holloway has established himself as an aggressive forward, with his stick and his skates, that effectively generates offense.

Dylan Holloway has been nothing short of a revelation for the Blues. He has been worth far more than the 2025 3rd round draft pick it took to acquire him, as well as the $2.29 million they're paying him. He is already a prime candidate for a lengthy contract extension, and, aside from Jordan Kyrou, has been the Blues best player this season (yeah, I said it).