When the Edmonton Oilers acquired Connor Ingram on Oct. 1, he was little more than a shot-in-the-dark insurance policy.<\/p>\n
A gamble, if not a lottery ticket.<\/p>\n
He\u2019d been out of hockey for nearly 10 months while attending to his mental health in the NHL Players Assistance Program and nobody knew for certain, including Ingram, if he still had to stuff to be a difference-making goalie when he came back.<\/p>\n
The Utah Mammoth didn\u2019t think so. He started 99 games for them over the previous three years but they didn\u2019t even invite him to training camp when the season started and ate $800,000 of his $1.95 million salary when they sent him to Edmonton for future considerations.<\/p>\n
It was hockey\u2019s equivalent of don\u2019t let the door hit you on the way out.<\/p>\n
And if a fresh start in the Oilers organization was going to be a career revival, it wasn\u2019t happening. Ingram went 4-5-2 with an .856 save percentage and 4.04 goals against average in AHL Bakersfield. Not exactly the stats line of a saviour.<\/p>\n
But he hung in there, kept swinging, and here we are, talking about the guy who might have saved Edmonton\u2019s season.<\/p>\n
He\u2019s taken over the undisputed No.1 job, starting seven of Edmonton\u2019s last eight games and he\u2019s 7-3-1 in his last 11 starts. The numbers don\u2019t jump out at you, but he\u2019s making the key saves at the right times, not giving up the back-breaking softies and giving Edmonton a fighting chance in every game.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe knew he was a reliable goalie who played a lot of games, around 50 games for Arizona (in 2023-24),\u201d said Oilers coach Kris Knoblauch. \u201cSo he was relied on in that starter\u2019s role. For him to come in, we thought of him more as a solid backup, part-time starter if we needed it.<\/p>\n
\u201cDid we envision him playing as many games as he has this year for us? No, we didn\u2019t. But we\u2019re certainly happy that we have him and he\u2019s given us solid goaltending.\u201d<\/p>\n
Winger Jack Roslovic sits the next stall over from Ingram in the Oilers room and says there isn\u2019t a player you want to cheer for more than this guy.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe\u2019s great, we\u2019ve become good friends sitting in our little corner by ourselves,\u201d said Edmonton\u2019s newest 20-goal scorer. \u201cWe talk a lot about hockey and a lot about life.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe\u2019s a really good person, means well. And he has a job I don\u2019t admire in the slightest, being a goaltender for the Edmonton Oilers. But he handles it well. He\u2019s trying. Every day he\u2019s out there working.\u201d<\/p>\n
STRONG SILENT TYPE<\/p>\n
Ingram is a soft-spoken and thoughtful person as a rule, but when it\u2019s time to get down to business, the walls come up.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe\u2019s not goalie-quirky, but he gets very locked in,\u201d said Roslovic. \u201cAn hour before the game, nobody talks to him. He doesn\u2019t like to say anything. Dead quiet. Just really locked in, really focused.\u201d<\/p>\n
Whatever he\u2019s doing, it\u2019s working. As the Oilers continue to find their game, Ingram is getting more and more dialed in to his. Who knows where this going to take them, but in the one-day-at-a-time world of stretch-drive and playoff hockey, the here and now is all that matters, and it\u2019s going good.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou look around at the goalies in the league and you have those couple of guys who are the big, big dogs or whatever, but he\u2019s right up there in that tier of the other guys,\u201d said Roslovic. \u201cHe\u2019s one of the best in the league right now. He\u2019s been great to watch and he\u2019s been great for our team.\u201d<\/p>\n
If this year has taught Ingram anything, it\u2019s to not look too far in the future. He knows better than anyone that the lightning fast transformation from not being invited to training camp to being the starter on a Stanley Cup contender can go the other way just as quickly.<\/p>\n
Even he admits the last six months are hard to believe sometimes.<\/p>\n
\u201cWould you have believed it?\u201d he laughed, adding the one thing he always did believe in is himself. \u201cI don\u2019t think I ever doubted it, but there were days where it seemed like the distant future, or a long way away.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s hard in this business, you don\u2019t really know what\u2019s going to happen. I don\u2019t know what tomorrow holds for me, so it\u2019s been a big learning curve this year of keeping your eyes open and just being as ready as you can whenever that opportunity does come.<\/p>\n
\u201cHockey\u2019s never been easy, so it\u2019s something I\u2019ve had to work at my whole life. That was the whole goal, just put your head down and go to work and whatever is going to happen is going to happen.\u201d<\/p>\n
And he\u2019ll be fine with that.<\/p>\n
\u201cLike I\u2019ve always said, my job doesn\u2019t change. No matter what league you\u2019re in or wherever you\u2019re playing, I\u2019m going to put my skates on the same way and go and do my job.\u201d<\/p>\n
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