Edmonton Oilers connor Ingram playing Canadian market: ‘If you can play here… you’ll be fine anywhere else’

It’s been a long, difficult road for Connor Ingram.

Cast aside by the Utah Mammoth last fall, just months after exiting the NHL/NHLPA Player Assistance Program to seek help with anxiety and obsessive-compulsive disorder, the Edmonton Oilers stepped up to give him a fresh start.

But it wasn’t going to begin in the NHL. Instead, the Imperial, Sask., native got his start with the American Hockey League’s Bakersfield Condors. It was far from smooth.

In his first 11 starts, he posted a 4-5-2 record, a .856 save percentage and a 4.04 goals against average. Everything changed in mid-December when the Oilers traded Stuart Skinner in a package deal to acquire Tristan Jarry, and less than a week later, he was called up to the Oilers when Jarry went down with an injury.

Game 1 went about as good as it could’ve in Edmonton, posting a .903 save percentage in a 4-3 win over the Vegas Golden Knights.

When Jarry returned to full health, nothing was clear in the Oilers’ crease. Ingram had posted a 4-2-1 record and a .904 save percentage, notching six quality starts in those seven games, but the Oilers had just spent oodles to bring in Jarry. The two traded starts until the middle of March, when Ingram was given the keys to the crease, keeping them into the playoffs — even though Jarry would get a start in Game 4 against the Ducks.

It was a year of learning, Ingram said Saturday during his season-ending press conference.

All in all, Ingram would finish the regular season with a 16-10-3 record, a .899 save percentage — 0.04 points higher than league average — a 2.60 goals against average, and a 63.3 per cent quality start percentage. The numbers dipped in the playoffs, however, with a 2-3 record, a .876 save percentage, a 3.86 goals against average and just a 20 per cent quality start percentage.

Despite his regular season quality start percentage being the second highest in franchise history, next to Calvin Pickard’s 2024-25 season (67.7 per cent) since the statistic started being tracked by Hockey Reference in 2007-08, his future in Edmonton remains uncertain.

Ultimately, what happens with Ingram is impacted by what happens with Jarry. The Oilers surely aren’t happy with how things panned out for the latter after the trade, evidenced by Ingram taking over the starting role. But with Jarry having two years left on a deal paying him $5.375 million, Edmonton could be hard-pressed to find him a new home.

And whether Ingram is in Edmonton next fall or not, he’s shown he can be a player teams can rely on.

Zach Laing is Oilersnation’s managing editor, and The Nation Network’s news director. He also makes up one-half of the Daily Faceoff DFS Hockey Report. He can be followed on X at @zjlaing, or reached by email at zach.laing@bettercollective.com.