Connor Ingram is 4-0-1 in his last six starts, with a .898 save percentage and a 2.50 goals-against average for the Edmonton Oilers. In the last five games, his five-on-five save percentage is 15th best in the NHL.

Those are average numbers, you might say. Said with different intonation: Hey, those are average numbers!

I’m not trying to anoint Ingram as anything he’s not, but in a season where goaltending has been a troublesome area of the Oilers game, a five-game stretch of average goaltending is exactly what the doctor ordered.

Kris Knoblauch declared Ingram the starter before Sunday’s game, and he’s provided solid returns. Of course, the Oilers in front of him are doing much better at staying above pucks and eliminating a lot of freebie chances against, too.

Overall, on the season, Ingram sits with a .895 save percentage, the clubhouse leader amongst the Oilers foursome of goaltenders.

The question is, if and when do the Edmonton Oilers extend Ingram?

The Jarry problem

Stan Bowman has a Tristan Jarry-sized problem for the next two seasons on the Oilers’ salary cap. The Oilers and Jarry are in a bad marriage with no pre-nup, which makes a divorce messy and expensive.

Jarry is $5.375 million on the books for the next two seasons. The buyout route provides little relief, just $666,000 in savings in 2026-27 and $1.16 million in 2027-28, due to the contract being bonus-laden.

There’s also Jack Campbell’s buyout on the team’s books until 2029-30, eating up $2.6 million next season alone. That’s nearly a whole Vasily Podkolzin.

Now, Jarry could regain confidence. The Oilers will likely have little choice but to keep him around for the future, otherwise bite the bullet on an asset-soaking trade to free themselves.

Regardless, there’s a massive question mark sitting above Jarry.

Upcoming UFAs

The upcoming crop of free agent goaltenders is weak. Ingram has the fourth-highest save percentage among pending UFAs, with Matt Murray (five games) being the only netminder above .900.

Twenty-six-year-old Daniil Tarasov might draw interest, in the same vein as Anthony Stolarz did two seasons ago as a Florida backup, as both he and Sergei Bobrovsky in the Panthers crease need new contracts.

The only other netminder besides Bobrovsky who’s played a starter-level number of games is Stuart Skinner. I don’t envision a reunion.

The Oilers would be playing a Connor Ingram-esque game, trading a late draft pick or signing an unknown, in the summer of 2026-27. They might have to anyway, whether they extend Ingram or not, depending on confidence levels surrounding Jarry in the summer.

With the salary cap increasing to a projected $104 million next season, about $8.5 million more than it is in 2025-26, there will be a lot of decisions about who stays and who goes.

Jack Roslovic, Kasperi Kapanen, Jason Dickinson, Adam Henrique, Curtis Lazar, and Max Jones, are all UFA forwards. Connor Murphy is a UFA defenceman.

According to PuckPedia, the Oilers have roughly $16.7 million in cap space next year.

Career

Ingram has successfully reset his career after going through significant mental health struggles a year ago. He is an NHL goaltender, endearing himself to many Oilers fans along the way. It’s hard not to root for the guy.

In 2023-24, he played 50 games with the Arizona Coyotes with a .907 save percentage, and performed at a solid, league-average starter level, if not better.

He finished 21st out of 98 goalies that season in goals saved above expected at 8.3. He was 11th in the same category when adjusting for five-on-five play, according to Moneypuck.

Is that who Ingram truly is, or was that a one-off, career-high year?

The Oilers are not built to have great goalie statistics with their sometimes connected, sometimes not, defensive commitment over the course of an 82-game season.

That’s what makes Knoblauch’s pronouncement of Ingram as the de facto starter so important. As the team is readying to play the most important of its games, it’s his crease.

Comparables

The situation rings closely to what happened with the Oilers back in 2022. Ken Holland had signed Jack Campbell to a five-year deal in free agency, but it became evident early he wasn’t the answer.

Having played 19 games that season, and 13 the previous, Holland extended Stuart Skinner on Dec. 19, 2022, to a three-year extension worth $2.6 million per season. As Skinner took the lion’s share of games, the contract became very team-friendly.

In the summer of 2023, Ingram inked a three-year contract worth $1.95 million annually. The Mammoth retained 41 per cent of the contract to deal him to Edmonton.

The $2-3 million range of goalies is a real hodgepodge: either they’re some of the best bang-for-your-buck contracts, or about what you’d expect from a backup. There’s been some notable extensions since the season began.

The Avs already extended Scott Wedgewood for $2.5 million next year, the deal done in November 2025. The Hurricanes extended Brandon Bussi for three seasons at $1.9 million per, as well, back in February.

Meanwhile, fringe starter Alex Nedeljkovic was just extended by the San Jose Sharks on March 6, for two years at $3 million per.

That seems to solidify a solid range for Ingram. Provided Ingram and the Oilers share mutual success down the stretch, Bowman can bring his price down by getting ahead of an extension.

There’s risk in both scenarios, but a multi-year contract that rings around $2.5 million sounds right to me. The risk is negligible compared to the big swing and asset spending done to acquire Tristan Jarry, and you can lock up a cost-effective piece for the future.

You may be able to get Ingram at a better price, which doesn’t hurt whether he’s a starter or a backup.

Michael Menzies is an Oilersnation columnist and has been the play-by-play voice of the Bonnyville Pontiacs in the AJHL since 2019. With seven years news experience as the Editor-at-Large of Lakeland Connect in Bonnyville, he also collects vinyl, books, and stomach issues. Follow him on X at Menzies_4.