Curtis Comeau/Icon Sportswire
Connor Ingram’s Journey Is Rare — But His Lessons Apply to Every Goalie
- Ingram started playing goal at 12 and was cut from Bantam AA at 14 — the full timeline of his rise is more unlikely than most realize.
- Less than 3% of drafted NHL goaltenders ever play 100 games — where Ingram stands in that context reframes what his career actually represents.
- Ingram credits a specific mindset shift — not athleticism — for his development. What that shift was, and how it applies to younger goalies, is unpacked below.
- The team that originally drafted Ingram is named in the article, along with why his path challenges the 'anybody can make it' narrative.
- There's a paradox at the heart of every goalie's development journey — and Ingram's story puts a name to it.
Connor Ingram’s path from burgeoning NHL starter with the Arizona Coyotes, to the NHLPA Player Assistance Program, to waivers, to starting in goal for the Edmonton Oilers in the playoffs has been well documented. I don’t want to minimize it, but I also don’t want to rehash it.
Instead, I want to focus on something remarkable Ingram shared in Episode 222 of the InGoal Radio Podcast.
“I got cut from my Bantam AA team at 14. I played Midget AA at 15. Sixteen, I got lucky and got on a good team in Prince Albert. And then 17, I ended up in the Dub (WHL), wasn’t drafted. Eighteen, had a good year, ended up getting drafted,” Ingram said of his path to professional hockey.
I think from the time I was young, I was never fast enough or big enough to get away with just pure athleticism, so I had to learn to read the game and think it before I played it.
What makes Ingram's story genuinely instructive isn't that he made it — it's the specific numbers that reveal just how statistically improbable every step actually was, and what that means for the goalies grinding through their own development right now.
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