{"id":504418,"date":"2026-02-28T03:22:08","date_gmt":"2026-02-28T03:22:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/504418\/"},"modified":"2026-02-28T03:22:08","modified_gmt":"2026-02-28T03:22:08","slug":"as-path-to-oilers-no-1-job-opens-up-ingram-stays-grounded","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/504418\/","title":{"rendered":"As path to Oilers’ No. 1 job opens up, Ingram stays grounded"},"content":{"rendered":"

SAN JOSE \u2014 One would think, the way this season has unfolded for Connor Ingram<\/a>, that 2025-26 would simply be an endless procession of awesome day after awesome day for a kid from Imperial, Sask.<\/p>\n

But somehow it just doesn\u2019t work that way for Ingram.<\/p>\n

\u201cFor guys like me who don’t feel good some days, I mean, it’s hard to keep it between the lines,\u201d said Ingram, 28, who kindly took time after Thursday\u2019s 8-1 win at L.A. to sit down for a chat with Sportsnet.ca. \u201cPart of it is being a pro too, being the same person every day. That\u2019s hard for people like me.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cIt’s something I’m pretty proud of, the growth I’ve had.\u201d<\/p>\n

Ingram, whose struggles with Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder (OCD) have been widely chronicled, may have left \u201cThe Program\u201d last summer, before the Utah Mammoth refused him a training camp invite but then retained enough money to facilitate a trade to Edmonton. But the NHL\/NHLPA Player Assistance Program will never fully leave Ingram.<\/p>\n

Even as the road to becoming Edmonton\u2019s No. 1 opens up \u2014\u00a0as that first playoff start approaches and stablemate Tristan Jarry searches for a semblance of his game \u2014\u00a0Ingram stays in the here and now.<\/p>\n

He\u2019ll tell you: He has to keep things small. You\u2019ll never catch him talking about a game in April, no matter how well he\u2019s playing in February.<\/p>\n

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\u201cLuckily for me, I’ve built a network of people that I can rely on,\u201d he said. \u201cI mean, there are guys in this room that I know, if I’m having a bad day, I can go talk to.<\/p>\n

\u201cTwo or three days ago, I found a guy in here,\u201d he said, glancing around the Oilers dressing room. \u201cI said, \u2018Man, I’m struggling right now.\u2019 And, he knows what it’s like. He took care of me, and I\u2019ll always appreciate that. There’s guys around here that know what you’re going through. You don’t have to do it alone.\u201d<\/p>\n

Ingram opened up voluntarily when we sat down. The plan was to talk about his game and his shot at stepping into the No. 1 role.<\/p>\n

But he likes to talk about the struggle. It\u2019s cathartic, perhaps, for him to share what he goes through on a daily basis.<\/p>\n

It makes you wonder if choosing \u201cNHL goaltender\u201d as a profession was the best idea for a guy who battles mental health the way Ingram does.<\/p>\n

\u201cI have three older brothers. They just strapped \u2018em on me and said, \u2018Get in there!\u2019\u201d Ingram said. \u201cI’m a big advisor of not being a goalie. Yeah, I’m not good for the brand.\u201d<\/p>\n

Only a Warren Foegele deflection stood between him and a shutout Thursday in Los Angeles, and after Jarry stumbled the previous night in Anaheim, we\u2019re guessing the crease will be Ingram\u2019s Saturday against the San Jose Sharks.<\/p>\n

But the fact is, Ingram really doesn\u2019t love talking about the things he does well \u2014\u00a0like playing goal in the National Hockey League. It seems he prefers to dig in on, to share, areas where he\u2019s not some kind of \u201cmonument.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cPeople forget: we’re humans. Especially in Canada,\u201d he said. \u201cYou play hockey, you’re almost a monument.<\/p>\n

\u201cBut at the end of the day, I go home to my wife and my family, just like everybody else. My job’s just on TV. That’s the only difference between you and me.\u201d<\/p>\n

Ironically, we look at Ingram as a blocker of pucks. A guy whose job is simple: get between the flying vulcanized rubber and the white twine.<\/p>\n

But when he talks about \u201cblocking out\u201d certain thoughts or impulses, hockey is the furthest thing from his mind.<\/p>\n

\u201cNo, never things like that,\u201d he said. \u201cSome days you deal with depression, anxiety. Some days you feel like garbage. That’s half the battle: just putting a face on and being the same person every day. It’s hard to do. But as I’ve started to feel better and gotten older, I think it’s gotten easier.<\/p>\n

\u201cPeople around you expect the same thing every day, and if you can’t give that to them, it makes it harder.\u201d<\/p>\n

As the glare of Jarry-Stuart Skinner trade \u2014\u00a0perhaps the worst trade in the NHL this season \u2014\u00a0lights up general manager Stan Bowman\u2019s world, lying in the shadows is the Ingram-for-futures trade that Bowman pulled off on Oct. 1.<\/p>\n

It was a savvy play for a guy who was excellent in Arizona behind a young, loose group of Coyotes.<\/p>\n

Slowly this season, his game has crystallized. Whether or not it\u2019s found a place that satisfies him.<\/p>\n

\u201cI’m happy with it, if that’s what you’re asking me,\u201d he said. \u201cBut it’s never as good as you think it is, and it’s never as bad as you think it is, too. Part of being a pro is coming in every day and just trying to get a little bit better at something.<\/p>\n

\u201cI don’t think you’re going to see huge bounds and strides at this point in my career, but there’s always something to work on.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"SAN JOSE \u2014 One would think, the way this season has unfolded for Connor Ingram, that 2025-26 would…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":504419,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[433],"tags":[49,48,448,82],"class_list":["post-504418","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nhl","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-nhl","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/504418","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=504418"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/504418\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/504419"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=504418"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=504418"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=504418"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}