Welcome back to another edition of Ask Dubey!

It’s been another eventful week for the Edmonton Oilers, beating the Nashville Predators and San Jose Sharks, and losing to the Florida Panthers and Tampa Bay Lightning. Mixed into it all, they lost Leon Draisaitl to injury, and Connor Ingram was given the keys to the crease.

Let’s get into it

Obviously, a lot is going on with the goaltending. We’ve talked about it. The struggles from Tristan Jarry, which I’m sure are frustrating for him. Jarry had a rough go in Dallas in his last game on March 12, and the Oilers went out and officially announced Ingram as the starting goaltender. I’d love some inside information about what the purpose of that was.

I don’t like to look at the rumours, I don’t dive too deep into the reports of Jarry arguing with teammates at practice, because I think those things can get blown out of proportion. But when something like this happens, it kind of makes you wonder, because there was no need to do that. Ingram can play the rest of the games for the year, and if he’s playing well, no one’s going to ask any questions.

No one is saying “you need to name a starting goaltender,” and yet, the Oilers went out and named him the starting goaltender. Was it a motivation factor? Were they pissed off at somebody? Who knows. I don’t like to speculate, but it was an interesting call because it wasn’t surprising. We kind of all knew Ingram was going to be the starter with the separation of their play, and Ingram has been really, really good, and has continued to be really good.

He’s doing it right now — he’s put himself in that situation.

They both has stretches of playing well and stretches of struggles, but now he’s really starting to seperate himself. And really, as a group, it would be great if they were both playing well, but hey, if one guy is playing as well as Ingram is, that’s really as a goaltender what you’re trying to do. You’re trying to seperate yourself and not give them an option.

As the year trickles down to the end here, every single game is huge for the Oilers, and he wants to give them no other option but to start him. That’s how you work your way into being a starting goaltender in the NHL, and obviously then proving yourself come playoff time. But this is a great stretch for him to prove that, yes, he can take this team into the playoffs and get them in a position that they want to be in.

Ingram has been through a lot and he’s obviously prepared himself for this situation and he’s given the Oilers extremely good goaltending.