Dylan Holloway had a welcome to the NHL moment in the Oilers’ 4-2 loss to the Buffalo Sabres in Edmonton on Tuesday night.

A few minutes into the second period, Holloway got drilled at centre ice by Sabres defender Ilya Lybushkin. Warren Foegele fired a breakout pass from behind Edmonton’s net and Holloway had his head down as he was receiving the puck and Lybushkin stepped up on him…

Foegele came in and tried to scrap with Lybushkin but the officials broke things up quickly. Meanwhile, Holloway got up from the ice and skated away from the scrum on his own accord and was immediately taken by the team’s trainers to the dressing room. He didn’t return to the bench or the ice for the rest of the game.

The Oilers haven’t yet provided an update on Holloway’s status.

The hope is that it wasn’t anything major and the Oilers opted to keep the rookie out for precautionary reasons after getting hit hard. Holloway missed the first half of the 2021-22 season because of a nagging wrist injury that required two different surgeries to finally fix. Missing time again early in a season would be a difficult blow for Holloway.