CALGARY — Heading onto the ice wearing an AHL jersey to play in front of a smattering of fans doesn’t smack as progress for someone who recently excelled at the highest level. Connor Ingram feels otherwise.
Ingram is back in the minors, a place where he hasn’t been as a regular in 3 1/2 years, and is in the early stages of resuming his hockey career after more than five months away to get support for depression after his mom’s death. He last played a game in the NHL on Feb. 22, 2025, for Utah, and doesn’t know when or even if he’ll play in the league again.
Now with the Bakersfield Condors, the top affiliate of the Edmonton Oilers, following a trade last month, he believes he’s in a better place.
“It’s been great here,” Ingram said. “I haven’t had to worry about anything. Just play hockey. You do want you can, play where they put you and wait your turn. That’s how it works. You have to be patient.
“Even if I never get an opportunity (with the Oilers), I’m happy to be here and just happy to help somebody.”
There are lots of reasons for Ingram’s outlook.
He got the help he so desperately needed when his life was spiraling out of control. He’s getting a fresh start with a new organization after a disappointing end with his previous one. He’s getting a chance to try to work his way back to the big leagues — and potentially being the top option for the Stanley Cup-contending Oilers — even if he knows he might never get there.
There’s nowhere for him to go but up.
“I’m building a foundation on rock bottom,” Ingram said. “That’s what it feels like some days. It’s a long road back.”
The 28-year-old is referring to where he feels his game is after just a few weeks since the Oilers acquired him from the Mammoth on Oct. 1.
What’s most important is he’s solely feeling this way about his netminding now. Because just months ago, rock bottom would have been an apt description of how he felt about everything in his life.
Ingram’s last few years have been filled with mental health challenges, all while he was trying to establish himself as a legitimate NHLer.
He was closing in on reaching the Nashville Predators’ roster when he entered the NHL/NHLPA player assistance program in January 2021 to get support for undiagnosed obsessive-compulsive disorder and lingering depression. That turned his life around, and after he was claimed off waivers by the Arizona Coyotes in October 2022, his career took off.
Ingram appeared in 27 games in his first season in the desert, which earned him a three-year contract extension. He almost doubled that workload the following campaign, posting a .907 save percentage, leading the NHL with six shutouts and stopping 5.2 goals above expected in all situations, per Natural Stat Trick. He won the 2023-24 Bill Masterton Memorial Trophy for his perseverance, sportsmanship and dedication to hockey.
“He bailed me out more than a few times,” said Condors defenseman Josh Brown, a Coyote that season.
“He was outstanding. He stole games for us,” then-teammate Barrett Hayton said. “He played unreal. We always knew he was going to fight for us.”
But as he was fighting on the ice, Ingram felt helpless away from the rink as he watched his parents fight for their lives.
First, his dad, Brent, was diagnosed with cancer. After Ingram’s father “got through that,” his mother, Joni, was diagnosed with breast cancer. The outlook was bleak.
Joni was given a year to live. Ingram remembers how lively his mom looked when she attended his wedding in August 2024. Her condition worsened drastically from there.
“To be away from her when all that was going on was the hardest part,” Ingram said.
Joni died in December, nine months after her initial diagnosis. She was 62.
Ingram took a leave of absence from his NHL team (now in Utah after an offseason move) to be with his mother before she died. He was a mess after that, overcome by depression.
He credits his wife, Sarah, for getting him through and being his rock through the “dark and scary” times.
“There were points last year where my wife wouldn’t let me drive home from the rink by myself,” Ingram said. “It was bad. It was dangerous.
“Thank God I’ve got Sarah around. She probably kept me out of the ground.”
Ingram re-entered the player assistance program on March 9 to get more help.
“In this profession, nothing’s given. You don’t just get to start back up and do whatever you want. You’ve got to start over. That’s how it was going to be,” he said. “When I stepped away, I knew it was probably: keep playing hockey or lose your life. I made a decision, and I accepted what was going to come next.
“When I went into the program, I knew that might be it. I probably wasn’t going to make it unless I did it.”
Ingram was cleared on Aug. 20 and was reinvigorated about the prospects of being an NHL netminder again.
“One of the worst things that can happen is losing a parent like that,” said Brown, who attended Connor and Sarah’s wedding with his wife, Sam. “Your heart breaks for him. He’s so much stronger than people give him credit for. He’s finding a way to come back and build his game again and again.”
Ingram made 22 appearances in net for Utah in the 2024-25 season. (Rob Gray / Imagn Images)
However, the Mammoth had signed Vitek Vanecek as free agency opened to back up Karel Vejmelka. The latter played 58 games last season without Ingram available for those two stretches, and going forward, Utah wanted to fortify the position. Ingram had an .882 save percentage in 22 appearances.
Ingram was placed on waivers on Sept. 25, the first day the Mammoth were eligible to do so. He cleared the next day, due in large part to his $1.95 million cap hit. The Mammoth wanted to allow Ingram the chance for a fresh start and made good on that intention when they dealt him to Edmonton on Oct. 1. They received nothing in return and retained enough money that the Oilers were on the hook for only $1.25 million, the maximum amount that can be buried in the minors without any charges to their salary cap.
Being on the outs with the Mammoth was difficult for Ingram. He and Sarah felt like they had to wait until training camp began to sell their house in Utah. She’s had to make a few trips from Bakersfield, Calif., to collect various belongings.
Bringing in Ingram, who’s in the last year of his contract, is a no-lose situation for the Oilers.
They’ve committed to giving No. 1 goalie Stuart Skinner the chance to augment his game under new goalie coach Peter Aubry to start the season. Calvin Pickard is a beloved teammate and has a 36-18-3 record for the Oilers since being promoted from Bakersfield in November 2023.
There were no promises made to Ingram by the Oilers when they traded for him. Goaltending is a subject of great consternation in Edmonton, of course, and Ingram gives them another option, one with high-end performance just a season ago. He’s regarded as being steady in the crease and positionally sound. Mammoth coach Andre Tourigny said the way he reads the game is “off the charts.”
Ingram was thrilled the Oilers picked him up. They’re the closest NHL team to his hometown of tiny Imperial, Saskatchewan, also home of Oilers coach Kris Knoblauch, and where he spends his summers in Saskatoon.
For now, Ingram is with the Condors and under the tutelage of their goalie coach, Kelly Guard, a fellow Saskatchewan native. Guard is from Prince Albert.
“We’ve been patient with what we want to work on and not change a whole lot, just get his feet under him again,” Guard said. “It’s about getting his confidence back and getting consistency within being a goalie again.”
“I have everything I need to succeed here,” Ingram said. “I can’t ask for anything else. Now, it’s on me.”
His first start was tremendous as he stopped 21 of 22 shots in a win on Oct. 18. He then allowed five goals in each of his next two appearances.
“He’s going through it all over again,” Condors coach Colin Chaulk said. ‘We’re listening to his feelings and his perspective and what he’s seeing.”
On Sunday, Ingram was in net for the AHL’s version of the Battle of Alberta against the Calgary Wranglers, and allowed five goals again, this time on just 20 shots, in a 6-1 loss. The game had the atmosphere of a late-summer rookie game in the spacious Saddledome. To say there were plenty of good seats available would be putting it mildly. It’s all a reminder that Ingram, though getting closer to the NHL, isn’t quite there yet.
Still, he feels like that 2023-24 level is in him.
“It doesn’t go away,” he said. “It’s like riding a bike. Some days it’s going to go your way. Some days it’s not. That’s just how it goes.”
Everyone asked about Ingram shares how they’re rooting for him, and how he’s a great teammate — down to earth, quiet but quick to make a one-liner with a dry sense of humour, and willing to help anyone.
“He’s a great goaltender and an even better person,” Mammoth winger Lawson Crouse said. “I hope to see him up. It would be cool to play against him again.”
There’s no guarantee that happens. Though Ingram so badly wants to be an NHLer again, he’s aware it might not work out.
What makes him more at peace is that his life, and by extension, his career, is “not as bad as it was.”
“If I would have blown my shoulder out, there wouldn’t be these questions,” Ingram said. “But because it’s my brain, you’re talking about it differently.
“I needed to work on myself more than anything.”
