Adding Connor Ingram does not solve the Edmonton Oilers’ goaltending challenges

The Edmonton Oilers went into the off-season needing to make just small tweaks. After finishing just inches away from the Stanley Cup again, the big question mark continued to be goaltending. The team played Stuart Skinner and Cal Pickard in stretches of the postseason, and while they both performed admirably, neither was lights out the way a Cup-winning goalie should have been.

This summer, all signs pointed to the team making a change in net, and instead, the team made tweaks on the wings but went into the season rolling the same two goalies that they did last season. The one addition was for the Edmonton Oilers to acquire Connor Ingram from the Utah Mammoth for future considerations. After clearing waivers, the Saskatoon-born goalie was acquired and will start with the Bakersfield Condors.

Do not expect Ingram to be a real solution in net for the Oilers, however.

Looking at Connor Ingram’s career performance

The former third-round pick played very well through his junior career with the Kamloops Blazers, but struggled to make the jump from the AHL to the NHL. His first two seasons were split between the AHL and ECHL, but when he finally made the jump full-time to the NHL in 2022–23, he took huge strides forward playing for a very weak Coyotes side. He carried that team through back-to-back 0.907 save percentage seasons.

However, last season he struggled both on and off the ice. This led to him playing second fiddle behind Karel Vejmelka for the latter part of the season.

What to make of the Edmonton Oilers acquiring Connor Ingram

Having now joined the Edmonton Oilers, Connor Ingram is a low-risk move for the team. The Mammoth hold the vast majority of his salary, and he is entering the final year of his current contract. On top of that, there is no risk of him not clearing waivers, as he already did that with Utah and can now be stashed in the minors. All positives so far.

The challenge is that there are three scenarios which the Oilers will look to Ingram for, and he doesn’t really solve any of them well.

1: Skinner is bad, Pickard is good

If this happens, the Oilers will look to Pickard to carry the load in the short term as Skinner finds his game again. Pickard is a fine NHL goalie and has shown he can handle himself in tough games, but he is not the answer to the Oilers’ struggles in net long-term.

If this is the case, Ingram doesn’t add any real value, as they are not going to demote Skinner to the AHL, unless he is as bad as Jack Campbell was. The team cannot really afford to hold three goalies, and even if they do, this means using cap space on a goalie option that they could be using to add more strength down the lineup front of on defence.

2: Pickard is bad, Skinner is good

In this case, the Oilers just keep rolling with Skinner and hope Pickard finds his game. In this case, you try your luck with Ingram, but you risk losing Pickard through waivers. Numerous teams are looking for support in net right now, and a team like the Calgary Flames would look long and hard at taking Pickard.

This poses a massive risk, as you are basically gambling on Ingram to be good. With his numbers being good but not outstanding in Arizona, then not good last season in Utah, you have to ask whether this is a smart gamble over a guy like Pickard, who carried you in the playoffs. It’s a big gamble to take for the cap-tight team.

Both Skinner and Pickard are bad

If both your goalies are really not good, you run into the same issue as before. You call up Ingram, using the balance of your accrued cap space, run him in net, and hope to god he works out. If he struggles, you’re looking to the market midseason, and if he’s good, you’re burning cap space to keep three goalies or risking losing Pickard through waivers. The odds of them putting Skinner through waivers are exceedingly low.

Did the Oilers acquire more of a headache with Ingram?

It doesn’t matter how new Edmonton Oilers goalie Connor Ingram performs in any of these scenarios; the Oilers have shown their hand as to how they feel about their goalies. It has been well established that Pickard is a well-liked player, and the team has shown zero interest in moving on from Skinner. Even if Ingram is fantastic, it’s hard to see the team moving away from either of their goalies unless one of them has a historically bad season.

And even if they do, the leashes for both are going to be long. And in fairness to the Oilers, these are the guys who took you to the Stanley Cup Final last season. Adding Ingram feels like a bone that Oilers management threw to fans to quiet the talk that they did nothing to address their goaltending issues this summer, and while Ingram has shown flashes of being quite good in the past, it’s hard to imagine him as the saviour that this team needs in net.