To call Connor Ingram a promising prospect is a bit misleading.<\/p>\n
After all, the 28-year-old goaltender already had 102 games worth of NHL experience under his belt prior to being traded to the Edmonton Oilers<\/a> on Oct. 1, and assigned to the Bakersfield Condors farm team.<\/p>\n And while he might not be a true prospect in that regard, the promising part still applies, as he so aptly proved in his debut with the organization.<\/p>\n Ingram allowed one goal on 22 shots for a .955 save percentage in a 2-1 win over the San Jose on Oct. 18.<\/p>\n \u201cHe was calm, confident. I would say he made the more difficult saves look a little easier, so he didn\u2019t make any more work for himself,\u201d said Bakersfield Condors head coach Colin Chaulk. \u201cHe\u2019s happy right now, he\u2019s playing hockey. He played well this one game.<\/p>\n \u201cHe\u2019s excited to practise and do the goalie training with (goaltending coach) Kelly Guard, and is excited to be in the gym with our strength coach, and all that stuff right now. And the California sunshine is treating him pretty well, as well. I think he\u2019s in a pretty good head space right now, so we\u2019re glad to have him.\u201d<\/p>\n But before anyone goes pencilling him in for a callup to the Oilers, whose inconsistent goaltending had \u2014 before this season, at least \u2014 been the target of the finger of blame among the fan base of the parent club for longer than they\u2019d like to admit, Ingram had a less than stellar follow up.<\/p>\n He made 24 saves in a 5-1 loss to the Tucson Roadrunners this past weekend.<\/p>\n And that small sample size is a microcosm of his career, which has also been up and down, so far including 11 stops in between the (former) East Coast Hockey League, the American Hockey League, Sweden and the NHL since 2017-18.<\/p>\n His last stop saw him play 47 games across two seasons with the (former) Arizona Coyotes\/Utah Hockey Club, before not getting invited back to training camp this year.<\/p>\n In all, he is 39-44-15 with a 3.14 goals-against average, .902 save percentage and seven shutouts in 102 regular-season NHL games, and has played in three playoff games.<\/p>\n But if there is one thing Ingram doesn\u2019t need, it\u2019s a smooth road. He has been through his share of bumps along his young career, as many goalies do. The thing that separates Ingram is he doesn\u2019t shy away from talking about his journey.<\/p>\n Between injuries and his battles with obsessive-compulsive disorder and anxiety that led to him to enter the NHL\/NHL Players Association player assistance program in 2021, before winning the Masterton Trophy as the player who best exemplifies the qualities of perseverance, sportsmanship and dedication to hockey, in the 2023-24 season.<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019m 48 years old, and when you were young and had a headache, your parents gave you Tylenol and Advil and you went back on the ice,\u201d Chaulk said. \u201cIn our era, if you had those feelings you were looked upon as soft. That\u2019s evolving and educating as a coach that, yes, they\u2019re hockey players. But they\u2019re human beings and people, first.<\/p>\n \u201cI feel like it\u2019s overused now, but it\u2019s relationships and getting to know the person, and when hard things come to the forefront \u2014 which they\u2019re going to at some point \u2014 we approach with empathy and understanding. And the biggest thing I\u2019ve learned is looking at it from that person\u2019s point of view, wherever that is, instead of just trying to see my point of view.\u201d<\/p>\n It\u2019s a different world, after all.<\/p>\n \u201cThe social media and all the new stressors that we didn\u2019t have to go through, it\u2019s such a different time,\u201d Chaulk said. \u201cThat\u2019s changing and evolving and forces growth and I know Connor\u2019s gone through a lot of that, as have I as a player and a coach, as well.\u201d<\/p>\n But the end goal still remains the same on the farm: Developing rising talent in order to take the next step in their evolution if and when their name gets called.<\/p>\n \u201cListen, the two goalies in Edmonton, I\u2019ve been fortunate enough to coach both Stu (Skinner) and (Calvin) Pick(ard). They\u2019re both great men, great fathers and great teammates and goaltenders, as well,\u201d Chaulk said. \u201cPick won 20 games last year, then came in and was undefeated in playoffs. So, they\u2019ve got two good goalies up there.<\/p>\n \u201cAnd you know what? There are two good goalies here (with Ingram and Matt Tomkins). And I\u2019ll even go further and say (Nathaniel) Day, (Samuel) Jonsson and (Connor) Ungar, there are some good goalies in the ECHL (affiliate Fort Wayne Komets) too.<\/p>\n \u201cAre they all NHL ready? Well, there are only two spots.\u201d<\/p>\n And with the way things have started out in Edmonton this season, goaltending happens to be the least of the big club\u2019s worries.<\/p>\n E-mail: gmoddejonge@postmedia.com<\/a><\/p>\n On Twitter: @GerryModdejonge<\/p>\n Related<\/p>\n Bookmark our website and support our journalism: Don\u2019t miss the news you need to know \u2014 add EdmontonJournal.com<\/a> and EdmontonSun.com<\/a> to your bookmarks and sign up for our newsletters<\/a>.
You can also support our journalism by becoming a digital subscriber. Subscribers gain unlimited access to The Edmonton Journal, Edmonton Sun, National Post, and 13 other Canadian news sites. The Edmonton Journal<\/a> | The Edmonton Sun<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"To call Connor Ingram a promising prospect is a bit misleading. After all, the 28-year-old goaltender already had…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":27714,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[35],"tags":[20859,151,3855,153,152,20857,11839,20861,20862,2070,20863,404,20858,20860,8985],"class_list":["post-27713","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-bakersfield","tag-american-hockey-league","tag-bakersfield","tag-bakersfield-condors","tag-bakersfield-headlines","tag-bakersfield-news","tag-colin-chaulk","tag-connor-ingram","tag-east-coast-hockey-league","tag-edmonton","tag-edmonton-oilers","tag-matt-tomkins","tag-nhl","tag-promising-prospect","tag-strength-coach","tag-utah-mammoth"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27713","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=27713"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27713\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/27714"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=27713"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=27713"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=27713"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}