{"id":515361,"date":"2026-03-21T19:10:37","date_gmt":"2026-03-21T19:10:37","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/515361\/"},"modified":"2026-03-21T19:10:37","modified_gmt":"2026-03-21T19:10:37","slug":"survival-of-the-fittest-trend-on-oilers-continues-as-goalie-again-pushed-to-side","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/515361\/","title":{"rendered":"Survival of the fittest trend on Oilers continues, as goalie again pushed to side"},"content":{"rendered":"

This in from Tony Brar of Edmonton Oilers<\/a> TV, news that Connor Ingram will start in net tonight against the Lightning of Tampa Bay.<\/p>\n

My take<\/p>\n

1. Not only has Oilers coach Kris Knoblauch named Ingram as his No. 1 goalie, he\u2019s also running him hard. This will be his fifth straight start, with back-up Tristan Jarry not getting a game since he let in seven goals to the Dallas Stars on March 12 nine days ago.<\/p>\n

2. There\u2019s no messing around in Edmonton just now, nor there has been this entire season, when it comes to demoting unproductive and\/or under-performing players. Jarry is the latest to feel the hard bite of NHL-style survival of the fittest, but the Oilers team has been a revolving door of players who aren\u2019t getting it done being moved out in the hopes that incoming players will do better.<\/p>\n

So far this season, Noah Philp, Andrew Mangiapane, Ike Howard, David Tomasek, Stuart Skinner, Calvin Pickard, Brett Kulak, Alec Regula, and Troy Stecher have all been waived or traded away, while under-performing and injured Mattias Janmark went for surgery. Trent Frederic was benched for a number of games.<\/p>\n

3. You know what? I don\u2019t think the Oilers\u2019 Darwinian overdrive is over yet either. Bottom-pairing d-men Spencer Stastney and Jake Walman haven\u2019t played well and could find themselves in the pressbox. There\u2019s also a non-zero chance if Darnell Nurse doesn\u2019t step up and finally bring his \u201cA\u201d game in the playoffs, and instead brings his \u201cD-\u201d game as has happened in the past, he could find himself on the third-pairing or in the pressbox this year.<\/p>\n

This is one more big year in the Connor McDavid<\/a>\/Leon Draisaitl era. There\u2019s no excuses, no justification for failing to do all that is possible in order to win, even if that means being super aggressive when it comes to players getting benched or moved out.<\/p>\n

\"Grade<\/a><\/p>\n

Grade A<\/p>\n

4. As for the wisdom of Knoblauch\u2019s declaring Ingram as the team\u2019s No. 1, the move was endorsed by NHL goalie expert Steve Valiquette earlier this week in an interview on the Real Kyper & Bourne show.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou got to piss him off,\u201d Valiquette said of Jarry. \u201cPiss him off. You know, you can\u2019t shame or blame a millionaire. Let\u2019s face it. But you can take away their ice time. And when you take away a goalie\u2019s ice time and you sit him down and he has to watch, he has to prepare like everybody else and wait all day and watch, especially to a guy that\u2019s been a number one before. He\u2019s been on the struggle bus for two years. And for him to get off of it, he\u2019s got to get really pissed off and want more for his career.<\/p>\n

Valiquette continued: \u201cAnd that means it\u2019s either time to quit, Tristan Jarry, or commit more. And that\u2019s everybody\u2019s message. We\u2019ve all been there during our careers, guys. At some point or another, we all hit a wall. I can tell you three times for sure that I was ready to shut it down, but I loved it too much and I didn\u2019t want to quit. And he has to show himself that way.\u201d<\/p>\n

5. Jarry will get back in net this regular season. If Ingram\u2019s hot streak ends, it could happen fast. If not, he\u2019ll still get his starts, as Edmonton will need two goalies in order to succeed before the current quest for the Stanley Cup comes to an end.<\/p>\n

At the Cult of Hockey<\/p>\n

When will Edmonton Oilers move away from fast sinking defence pairing?<\/a><\/p>\n

Edmonton Oilers down another forward indefinitely, as big winger gets more bad luck<\/a><\/p>\n

\u2018Did Knoblauch watch the same game?\u2019: Oilers fans turn on Edmonton coach after hard loss to Panthers<\/a><\/p>\n

LEAVINS: Oilers soundly defeated 4-0 by their old Stanley Cup Finals foes: Cult of Hockey player Grades<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"This in from Tony Brar of Edmonton Oilers TV, news that Connor Ingram will start in net tonight…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":475527,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[5125],"tags":[4059,1824,3592,275,96,2663,147,1809,198,146,5300,5,3144,189,3533,4,22637,1592,24,9700,41312,157,4991,1587,6769,5928],"class_list":{"0":"post-515361","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-edmonton-oilers","8":"tag-alec-regula","9":"tag-andrew-mangiapane","10":"tag-brett-kulak","11":"tag-calvin-pickard","12":"tag-chicago-blackhawks","13":"tag-connor-ingram","14":"tag-dallas-stars","15":"tag-darnell-nurse","16":"tag-edmonton","17":"tag-edmonton-oilers","18":"tag-edmontonoilers","19":"tag-hockey","20":"tag-jake-walman","21":"tag-lightning","22":"tag-mattias-janmark","23":"tag-nhl","24":"tag-nhl-goalie","25":"tag-noah-philp","26":"tag-oilers","27":"tag-spencer-stastney","28":"tag-steve-valiquette","29":"tag-stuart-skinner","30":"tag-the-oilers","31":"tag-trent-frederic","32":"tag-tristan-jarry","33":"tag-troy-stecher"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nhl\/116268750549790588","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/515361","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=515361"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/515361\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/475527"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=515361"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=515361"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=515361"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}