Top goalie from Edmonton Oilers just can't get no respect in today's NHL

Connor Ingram was the top goalie on the Edmonton Oilers this past season. The 29-year-old played the most games for the Oilers, 32, had the most wins, 16, and the highest save percentage 0.899. He started five out of six playoff games. He was also an OK goalie by NHL-wide standards. If you rank goalies [...]

Connor Ingram was the top goalie on the Edmonton Oilers this past season. The 29-year-old played the most games for the Oilers, 32, had the most wins, 16, and the highest save percentage 0.899. He started five out of six playoff games.

He was also an OK goalie by NHL-wide standards. If you rank goalies based on their durability (games played), shot stopping prowess (save percentage), and comparative shot stopping prowess (Goals Saved Above Average as reported by Natural Stat Trick), Ingram ranked 46th in games played, 29th in save percentage, and 30th in Goals Saved Above Average, good for an overall ranking of 34th out of the 70 goalies who played more than 15 games last season. At age 29, Ingram is in the heart of his career now.

Numerous goalies with inferior numbers and less NHL experience have received new contracts in recent weeks, but not Ingram. On June 24th, Oilers insider Bob Stauffer said there was a chance Ingram would end up with the Ottawa Senators. At that time I wrote that I wasn’t thrilled the Oilers were evidently moving on from Ingram and keeping around Tristan Jarry.

Ingram out-played Jarry by a wide margin with the Oilers last year. I also put a lot of weight in the assessment of Steve Valiquette, the former NHL goalie, studio analyst for MSG New York, and leader of Clear Sight Analytics, who spoke highly of Ingram in late April, saying the goalie was good enough to take the Oilers deep into the playoffs. Valiquette said that before Ingram’s down 2024-25 season when he went into the NHL’s Player Assistance Program for the second time in his career, that Ingram had been one of the NHL’s best goalies.

Ingram had a .907 save percentage two years running with Arizona. “Three years ago, before he went through his stuff, he was one of the top 10 goalies in the league when he was with Arizona at the time. I think that Edmonton recognized the talent there, and what he’s doing is he’s not allowing the bad goal, and he’s not allowing the mid-danger goal more than he should.”

Jarry had two-years left on his contract at $5.375 million per year, so it would have been difficult for Edmonton to move him. But Edmonton also clearly preferred other options than Ingram, trading for young Devon Levi and signing as a free agent veteran Frederick Andersen. Andersen ranked just 62nd out of the 70 regular NHL goalies last year, but he went on a solid run in the playoffs, leading the Carolina Hurricanes to the Stanley Cup Final before getting banged up against Vegas.

One factor in Ingram’s not yet signing? We don’t know his contract demands. Perhaps after a decent season in Edmonton he was expecting a multi-year deal paying two or three million per year.

I don’t know. But it could well be other teams are going with cheaper options. Still, numerous other teams are signing up far less accomplished goalies than Ingram.

For example, Ottawa traded for Swedish goalie Samuel Ersson, who ranked 66th out of 70 goalies with Philadelphia last season. He had an .869 save percentage in 34 games. Even Calvin Pickard, who Ingram beat out in Edmonton and ranked 69th out of 70 regular NHL goalies last year, got a new contract in Minnesota.

Pickard had an .871 save percentage in 16 games for the Oilers. Other goalies who ranked below Ingram (see chart below) but have been acquired and/or signed by new teams include Stuart Skinner, Akira Schmid, Joonas Korpisalo, David Rittich, Arturs Silovs, Jacob Markstrom, Sergei Bobrovsky, Eric Comrie, Vitek Vanecek and Leevi Meriläinen. Now some of those goalies have big names and might simply have had poor years last season.

Perhaps it’s wise to expect them to bounce back. But on those three key measures Ingram did indeed out-perform them and, as Valiquette suggests, he’s been an above average NHL goalie in the past. Of course there is one other factor that could well be at play here.

Despite his solid play in Edmonton and evidently being counted on by coach Kris Knoblauch and well received by his teammates in Edmonton, Ingram has had those two stays now in the NHL’s Player Assistance program. Could that be an issue? Again, I don’t know, just like I don’t know what Ingram’s contract demands are.

But something isn’t adding up here. In any case, good luck to Edmonton’s top goalie last season. I’m sure he’ll find another NHL home

and I wouldn’t be at all surprised to see him have a few more good NHL seasons. And I hear the Carolina Hurricanes are looking for another goalie. One bit of good news for Ingram — more NHL teams might be looking at following Carolina’s lead and going with three NHL goalies this year, just as the Edmonton Oilers now intend to do with Jarry, Andersen and Levi.

That might well open up a job or two around the league.