EDMONTON -- Connor Ingram is trying to keep everything in perspective.
The 28-year-old goalie navigated a complex path back to the NHL after 10 months and made the most of his first start with the Edmonton Oilers on Sunday, making 26 saves in a 4-3 win against the Vegas Golden Knights at Rogers Place.
“I’ve been through enough to know that the sun is coming up tomorrow,” Ingram said after the game. “No matter what happens in this life, I have a wife and a family that loves me, and that’s all that really matters at the end of the day.
“You want to win hockey games, but there’s a lot more to life than just hockey.”
Ingram has proven he can play at a high level in the NHL in the past, which is why the Oilers acquired him in a trade with the Utah Mammoth for future considerations on Oct. 1. He had been in Bakersfield of the American Hockey League before being recalled Friday, one day after Tristan Jarry sustained a lower-body injury in a 3-1 win at the Boston Bruins.
Ingram backed up Calvin Pickard in a 5-2 loss at the Minnesota Wild on Saturday and got the call in the second game of a back-to-back, making his first NHL start since a 21-save performance for Utah in a 5-3 loss at the Los Angeles Kings on Feb. 22. He entered the NHL/NHLPA Player Assistance Program for a second time just 15 days later.
“There’s been dark days. I rely heavily on Sarah (wife), my dad, my brothers, I met a couple of fantastic therapists along the way at the NHL program,” Ingram said. “Dr. [Joel] Gold sent me a text yesterday when I got called up, just asking me how I was doing.
“If you surround yourself in life with good people and when you need them, they are going to be there. When you go through struggles, you find out who the people really are around, and those are the people you want to keep around.”
Selected by the Tampa Bay Lightning in the third round (No. 88) of the 2016 NHL Draft, Ingram is 40-44-15 with a 3.13 goals-against average and .902 save percentage with the Nashville Predators, Arizona Coyotes, Utah and Edmonton. He made 22 starts for Utah last season and went 9-8-4 with a 3.27 GAA and .882 save percentage. Ingram’s best season to date was 2023-24 with Arizona, where he went 23-21-3 with a 2.91 GAA and .907 save percentage in 50 games (48 starts).
He first entered the Player Assistance Program on Jan. 25, 2021, to help deal with alcohol issues related to undiagnosed obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD). He returned March 9 of this year to help cope with the death of his mother to breast cancer, which he made public in a social media post.
He admits it took time to find his game once he was traded to Edmonton and assigned to Bakersfield. Ingram went 4-5-2 with a 4.04 GAA and an .856 save percentage in AHL games prior to being recalled.
“It was hard; I didn’t get to go to [training] camp, so that was a huge setback,” Ingram said. “I was in Utah when [the trade] happened, so I took two weeks without touching the ice, and that’s hard to come back from right before the season. It took me a [second] to get it going again, but at that point it’s just hockey -- you put your skates on the same way no matter where you are and just go and try to do your best. Every dog has their day.”
Ingram looked comfortable with the Oilers from the onset. His first save on Sunday was a tricky blocker stop against Ivan Barbashev just 37 seconds into the game, which drew a loud cheer from fans, but Ingram was too locked in to notice.
He made seven saves in the first period for Edmonton, which took a 2-0 lead, and another nine in the second. The Oilers were up 4-0 by the time Tomas Hertl scored on the power play for Vegas at 12:59 to cut it to 4-1.
The Golden Knights scored twice in the third period to make it 4-3 with 14:11, but Ingram still made 10 saves to keep his team in front.
“Great for him,” Edmonton coach Kris Knoblauch said. “He hasn’t played an NHL game for almost a year, and he started off in Bakersfield and maybe the stats aren’t ideal. I think he was under a lot of difficult circumstances there, but we knew he was a quality goaltender. He’s played a lot of games when he was in Arizona, and one year he played up to 50 games with an over .900 save percentage. Really solid.”
The Oilers are counting on Ingram to help them get through the stretch where they’ll be without Jarry, who was acquired on Dec. 12 in a trade from the Pittsburgh Penguins for goalie Stuart Skinner, defenseman Brett Kulak and a second-round pick in the 2029 NHL Draft. Jarry will be out a “couple weeks,” according to Knoblauch.
“It’s awesome to see a guy like that get rewarded,” Edmonton forward Zach Hyman said of Ingram. “I thought he played great. We gave up a lot of chances in the third, we bent but we didn’t break, and he was a huge part of that.”
With his strong support network, Ingram said he is back in a good place and was grateful to earn his first NHL win since making 20 saves for Utah in a 3-2 victory at the Columbus Blue Jackets on Feb. 6.
“There’s a lot of days I didn’t think it would ever happen again,” Ingram said. “It’s just the truth of it in this world. It’s a competitive game, there are 64 spots in the world to [be an NHL goalie], so you don’t take it for granted any day that you’re up here. It’s a huge honor.”
