Should the Edmonton Oilers target Goaltender Connor Ingram

The author, Cole Bagley, an Utah Mammoth insider, stated that Ingram will eventually be placed on waivers.

The 28-year-old goalie is coming off a slower season, losing time to injury and having ended the season in the NHLPA Player Assistance Program. In 22 games he posted an .882 Sv% and a 3.27 GAA. While these numbers are nothing to write home about, the season before last he posted a .907, 2.91 in 50 games with an Arizona Coyotes team that finished 27th.

Should the Edmonton Oilers pick up Connor Ingram?

The pros for Connor Ingram

If you asked 100 people on the streets of Edmonton, “What is the single most important change the Oilers need to make?” Certainly one of the most common answers would be consistency in net. Realistically, this has been a problem throughout the Connor McDavid era, but last year it seemed to be holding the Oilers back more than usual.

While Stuart Skinner went through some very solid stretches and ended the season with a respectable 2.81 GAA, he also went through longer poor stretches and ended with a poor .896 Sv%. The average Sv% in the NHL has decreased rapidly lately, but that is still well below average.

Calvin Pickard had a solid backup season, finishing with a .900 Sv% and a 2.71 GAA and actually played in 36 games, close to half, but that is still below average goaltending.

The Oilers success last year was largely due to their ability to control the flow of the game and therefore limit shots against. Based on their team Sv%, if they allowed as many shots against per game (32.3) as the league’s highest in SA (Anaheim Ducks), they would have the sixth worst GA/GP in the league and they would actually be running at a negative goal differential.

The Oilers are currently employing a career .903 goalie in Pickard and a .906 goalie in Skinner. While Pickard only has 175 games under his belt, he is essentially a known quantity, likely a .900 goalie. Connor Ingram creates the possibility of having two goalies with above average potential, essentially sharing the net evenly and pushing each other to greater heights.

The case for Ingram is the case for trying something new, and there is a lot to be said for that. There is a famous quote, often attributed (but I think misattributed) to Albert Einstein, that states, “the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.”

The cons Against Ingram

The first thing that may come to your mind about signing Connor Ingram is that it feels a lot like the Oilers never-ending search for middle-six forwards. Viktor Arvidsson, Jeff Skinner, Corey Perry, Dylan Holloway, Warren Foegele, Kailer Yamamoto, Jesse Puljujarvi, James Neal, Andreas Athanasiou, Milan Lucic, and Strome are all examples of players who have been brought in. It was often with the intent of being placed on Leon Draisaitl’s wing, who never really worked out, then being relegated to the third and fourth line before being shipped off to another team. Many of them, like Strome, Athanasiou, Neal, Perry, Lucic, Arvidsson, and Skinner, had seen previous success, which engendered a lot of hope in fans, only to be dashed by disappointing results.

Connor Ingram feels like a prime candidate for the goalie version of these many forsaken forwards. He has had a couple solid seasons, the year before last posting a .907 Sv% and 2.91 GAA in 50 games with the Coyotes. The year before that was also a good year but with only 27 games played. It would be all too easy to predict that Ingram will end up being just as inconsistent as the current goaltending duo.

Another easy to point to make is that Ingram hasn’t done enough to prove that he can be consistently better than Pickard, who had a good backup year last year, and who actually had a spectacular backup year before that with a .909 Sv% and 2.45 GAA in 23 games.

Ingram and Pickard essentially had the exact same season the year before last except Ingram was able to do it over twice as many games and with a far worse team. One good season is not enough to prove that Ingram can undoubtedly turn the goaltending situation around.

In the end, the real question is, what is the harm in signing him? If he plays well, great; if he plays poorly he can be sent down and replaced with Pickard. It’s better that the Oilers at least try Ingram and see how he does. His $1.95M AAV could be made to fit in with the Oilers.

At this point in the game, Ingram is probably the Oilers best option for trying to improve in net. While he may not be the answer, it’s better to try than run it back again this year and hope it goes better. How many times did the Toronto “Core Four” run it back without any results?