Connor Ingram’s circuitous path to becoming the Coyotes’ No. 1 goaltender

There are times when it feels like Arizona Coyotes goalie Connor Ingram materialized out of nowhere, breaking through at 26 years old to become one of the NHL’s top netminders this season.

“You get the guys who are just pure hype machines that go straight to the NHL. And then there’s the guys like us, who grind away for several years before we get an opportunity. I think there’s something to be said for them,” Ingram told ESPN. “Some guys get their opportunities early. Some guys take a couple tries before they figure it out.”

It’s taken seven professional seasons for Ingram to figure it out on the ice, through multiple AHL and ECHL stops, stints with the Nashville Predators and the Coyotes, and nine games in Sweden he’d actually rather forget about.

“Our team over there got accused of throwing games,” said Ingram. “It’s actually a crazy story.”

Ingram has also had to figure things out off the ice, where an undiagnosed obsessive-compulsive disorder and lingering depression nearly had him retire from hockey in 2021 — before he sought help.

“I tried to white knuckle it through that kind of stuff. And you can’t,” he said.

Ingram started the season with an 11-5-0 record and a .920 save percentage through 17 games. ESPN analyst and former NHL goalie Kevin Weekes called Ingram “the most underrated goalie” in the NHL this season, and a “top-tier candidate for the Vezina Trophy.” Arizona GM Bill Armstrong called him one of the most important reasons why the Coyotes were a surprising playoff contender two months into the season.

Armstrong claimed Ingram on waivers in Oct. 2022. It was out of necessity, given how thin the team was at the position. But the team’s scouts had also identified Ingram as having all the attributes they were looking for in a goaltender.

The Coyotes felt Ingram played well last season, with a .907 save percentage in 27 games and analytics showed he was above replacement level. Armstrong said Ingram returned this season “in great shape, mentally and physically,” having slimmed down a bit in the offseason.

Armstrong has always seen a similarity between hockey goalies and baseball pitchers.

“As they mature, it comes together at a certain age. Then everybody says, ‘Oh my God, who knew the 26-year-old goaltender could stop the puck?'” he said. “The right opportunity appears and they blow it out of the water.”

Armstrong has a theory that goalies, like pitchers, can get stronger mentally as they improve physically. “They sometimes have to go through all these different ups and downs in their life to learn a little bit at each time,” he said.

Like that situation in Sweden.

“The hockey itself was great,” he said. “But the end of it wasn’t fantastic.”

THE NHL WAS DARK in the fall of 2020, with the COVID-19 pandemic forcing a delay in the start of the 2020-21 season. Ingram was coaching a youth hockey team in Saskatoon, where he grew up.

After being drafted 88th overall in 2016 by the Tampa Bay Lightning, he had been traded to the Predators in 2019. The Predators informed him that they had found a place for Ingram to play ahead of the NHL season. Goalie Kevin Poulin had been injured while playing for Björklöven, a Swedish pro team. They were looking for a quick fix in goal. Ingram took the offer and traveled overseas.

It was December 2020. Björklöven was second in the league standings for Swedish Allsvenskan, a second-tier league. They were playing a lesser opponent in Mora and built a 3-0 lead during the game.

But something odd was happening in the betting markets during the game.

While Björklöven opened on one sportsbook as a -130 favorite, they were only a -150 favorite having built that considerable lead. Normally, the money line remaining that low would indicate that significant money was being placed on the underdog to rally in the game. But logic dictated they would not.

So, it was curious. Very curious. It got to the point where some sportsbooks were taking the game off their boards because of this seeming inexplicable wagering pattern, given the circumstances of the game.

Mora would, in fact, rally. They scored eight straight goals to win 8-4. Six of the goals were scored on the power play. Ingram gave up five goals on 14 shots in the game before being pulled. As Sportsnet noted at the time, it was Ingram’s final start for the team before his loan agreement to the club expired.

In the aftermath of the loss and the suspicious wagering activity, there were accusations made about Björklöven throwing the game. The team’s CEO, Anders Blomberg, was quick to welcome an investigation into the allegations from the league and the betting company.

“If it turns out to be true, it is of course completely unacceptable and something that must never occur in our association,” he said.

Two days after the allegations were made against Björklöven, the Swedish Ice Hockey Association announced the team and its players had been cleared of any wrongdoing. It found no evidence of match-fixing and reported that the incident was “based on human error” at one of the betting companies.

Unfortunately for Ingram, his reputation had already been seriously damaged. An erroneous report by a Swedish radio station claimed that Ingram had been “fired” after the game by Björklöven for throwing the game.

“This news outlet had our GM’s number. It sent him a text asking if I was involved in [match-fixing], since I was the last guy there on an NHL deal,” Ingram said. “Our GM texted them back and was like, ‘Yep, he already admitted to it. It was totally him. We’ve caught him. He’s going back home or whatever.'”

Except it turned out this was not an SMS conversation between the station and Björklöven general manager Per Kenttä. The unknown person on the other end of the messages answered questions “in a credible way,” as the station later noted in a correction. But it was a wrong number.

“They texted this number thinking it was our GM and whoever this number was just f—ing buried me for no reason. They were just like, ‘Oh, I’m gonna have fun with this’ and it almost ended my career. All this stuff comes out about how I’m throwing games. It got picked up back in North America,” Ingram said.

The investigation had cleared the team, and hence had cleared Ingram. Blomberg told Sports Expressen that the radio station report was made on “completely incorrect grounds and on sloppy journalistic work.”

Ingram said the news outlet reached out to him after realizing its mistake.

“They sent me like an email just being like, ‘We’re so sorry we used your name. We had false information. Like, please don’t sue us,'” he summarized.

When Ingram received that email, he was already back in the U.S. with the Predators. He considered continuing the fight to clear his name but was advised by the team not to bring even more attention to the accusations. No action was taken.

“I don’t even know if I’m allowed back in Sweden. I might be on an Interpol list somewhere,” he said. “So that was a tough couple days in my life.”

They’d just get tougher for Ingram.

INGRAM HAD RETURNED TO Nashville after that Sweden debacle, around Christmas time. He wasn’t feeling right. He hadn’t been for a while.

The NHL opened its 2020-21 season in January, a 56-game campaign shortened by the COVID-19 pandemic. Each team was allowed to expand its roster to include a taxi squad in anticipation of COVID-related absences. Ingram was on the Predators’ taxi squad during an early season road trip to Dallas. That’s where he had a heart-to-heart with goaltending coach Ben Vanderklok.

“I just said I didn’t want to do it anymore. That I was ready to go home,” Ingram said.

The two talked more, in depth, about everything that Ingram had been thinking and feeling about his life.

Vanderklok suggested Ingram enter the NHL/NHLPA Player Assistance program for help. Ingram credits that as a turning point in his life and career.

“He sent me there instead of letting me retire, and I wouldn’t be here without him,” the goalie said.

He arrived at the program ready to work on what he perceived to be a problem with alcohol.

“I got there and the lady was like, ‘You don’t have a problem with this. You don’t drink every day. You have an OCD problem,'” he said. “And I was like, ‘Whoa, wait, what does that mean?'”

Ingram learned that he had been living with undiagnosed obsessive-compulsive disorder. He then learned how to define those aspects of his life that were spiraling. He learned about completion tendencies and his “all or nothing” feelings. He came to understand his fear of contamination. He learned where his idiosyncrasies as a goalie ended and his OCD began.

“They obviously overlapped for me. I’m a big routine guy and there’s a line between routine and superstition, where if things don’t go right, then it can cause problems,” Ingram said. “Having a routine is a good thing. Having superstitions of what time you go to bed or what numbers are bad are obviously a different story. At the time, I had no idea of the difference and now like I kind of decipher and decide what’s real or not.”

Ingram said he learned that along with his OCD, he was dealing with depression, much of it linked to the 2018 bus accident involving the Humboldt Broncos junior hockey team.

Sixteen people were killed and 13 more were injured when a semi-truck that failed to yield at a flashing stop sign struck a coach bus carrying the Saskatchewan Junior Hockey League team. Ingram, a native of Saskatchewan, briefly played in the SJHL during the 2013-14 season.

“I was close with a lot of those Humboldt Broncos guys. I lost some really good friends,” he said. “Those kids are my age. A lot of guys I played with.”

While people around the hockey world were leaving sticks outside their front doors in honor the Broncos, Ingram left his goalie mask outside of his as tribute. Logan Schatz, the captain of the team, was a friend.

The only loss Ingram had experienced at that point in his life was losing his grandparents when he was younger. He had never even conceived of a loss like the Humboldt tragedy, or how he’d react to it.

“That was something that I just kind of buried and went about my life,” Ingram said. “It wasn’t great. I was trying to [deal with] it on my own, and obviously I couldn’t.”

Armstrong said the Coyotes were aware of Ingram’s personal history when they claimed him on waivers.

“But we were also aware of the new Connor,” Armstrong said. “We were impressed by who he was on the day that we took him. He’s really at a good place in his life.”

ARMSTRONG SAID INGRAM’S greatest attribute is his hockey IQ, which can be a deciding factor in a goalie’s NHL success. It’s something Hockey Hall of Famer Martin Brodeur helped Armstrong understand when they were both executives with the St. Louis Blues, working on their draft board.

“I went to watch this particular goaltender in the draft, and he said that goalie could never be a starter. I asked him why, and Marty said that he used too much energy to make saves,” Armstrong recalled. “That there was no way he could play the next night or in back-to-back games because he uses too much energy.”

“Connor doesn’t use a lot of energy because his reads are so accurate,” he continued. “When he’s on, the game is very simple for him, and he makes all the saves look extremely easy because of his hockey IQ and tracking the play. It’s off the charts.”

His strong play early on has helped steady the Coyotes, enabling them to contend in the West.

The Coyotes’ season started off unusually, with their preseason trip to Australia for two exhibition games to playing 11 of their first 17 regular-season games on the road. They were a team with a ton of new faces, from veteran offseason acquisitions like defenseman Matt Dumba and forward Jason Zucker to rookie sensation Logan Cooley, who left college to join the Coyotes this season.

Off the ice was the usual uncertainty about the franchise: Voters rejected an arena plan for Tempe, the team vowed to bring an alternative plan to the NHL by midseason, and the Coyotes are playing their second straight season in Mullett Arena on the campus of Arizona State University.

“I think the team was really kind of fragile. Kind of searching for how good they were,” Armstrong said.

Through 27 games, they’ve learned they’re pretty good. The Coyotes, who have made the playoff once in the last 11 seasons, entered Tuesday with a 13-12-2 record (.519 points percentage) that had them in the first wild-card spot in the West, six points behind the Winnipeg Jets for third place in the Central Division.

“It’s been good. I mean, the vibe is always better when you’re winning,” Ingram said. “Just being around the guys when things are going well has been a lot of fun.”

It’s taken a while for the Coyotes to contend again. It’s taken a while for Ingram to make his mark as an NHL goalie.

“You can’t make a seed grow,” said Armstrong. “It kind of does on its own, when it wants to.”