His performance with the Oilers, where he seized the No. 1 goaltending job after three others failed to hold it, earned him the team\u2019s nomination for the Bill Masterton Memorial Trophy on Wednesday.<\/p>\n
The trophy is awarded annually to the NHL player who \u201cbest exemplifies perseverance, sportsmanship and dedication to hockey.\u201d It is named after Minnesota North Stars forward Bill Masterton, who died following an on-ice injury in 1968.<\/p>\n
The Oilers are one of eight teams that have never won the award. Ingram won it in 2023-24 with Arizona after overcoming mental health struggles and tying for the league lead with six shutouts.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s been a whirlwind,\u201d the 29-year-old Saskatoon native said of this season\u2019s journey. \u201cI never heard of someone not being invited to camp before. They put it in writing for me that they had asked that I not attend camp.<\/p>\n
\u201cAt that point, it was just, whatever came next was what you were gonna deal with. And luckily it was here in Edmonton and (general manager) Stan (Bowman) gave me a chance, and I\u2019ll be forever grateful.\u201d<\/p>\n
Ingram was drafted by the Tampa Bay Lightning in 2016, but never played for them and was traded to Nashville in June 2019. He recorded his first NHL win Oct 24, 2021, nine months after entering the league\u2019s player assistance program to deal with obsessive-compulsive disorder, depression and alcoholism.<\/p>\n
In October 2022, he was claimed off waivers by Arizona and spent two seasons there before the franchise moved to Utah.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Ingram was traded to Edmonton last September and called up from Bakersfield on Dec. 19 when Tristan Jarry, newly acquired from Pittsburgh, was injured.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere\u2019s a lot of things that happen in hockey that, as a human being, I understand,\u201d he said of the Utah situation. \u201cIt\u2019s when you get into how you treat people that bothers me. I\u2019m an athlete, but I\u2019m still a human being, and that\u2019s what brothered me more than anything.\u201d<\/p>\n
The son of parents who were both teachers and first responders, Ingram struggled in Bakersfield, but credited the coaching staff there for giving him the chance to resettle his life and career.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey never gave up on me. They kept letting me play,\u201d he said of Bakersfield head coach Colin Chaulk and goaltending coach Kelly Guard. \u201cA quote I always go back to is, ‘sometimes rock bottom\u2019s a great place to build a foundation.’ That\u2019s what it was. Nobody told me to quit, so I just kept playing, and here we are.<\/p>\n
Ingram still deals with some mental health issues, but gets through those days with the help of his wife, Sarah, and simple walks.<\/p>\n
\u201cShe sees it coming before I do most days,\u201d Ingram said. \u201cShe takes care of me more than a wife probably should. I\u2019ll be forever grateful for everything she does for me.<\/p>\n
\u201cI go for walks some days just to get some sunlight, but I mean, there\u2019s nothing that I can do that\u2019ll snap me out of it immediately. There\u2019s no one fix for all of this.\u201d<\/p>\n
Regaining his position as a starting NHL goaltender helped restore his belief in himself.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou have to believe in yourself,\u201d he said. \u201cThere\u2019s a lot of outside noise. You know, can you, can you not? If you believe you can, you\u2019re gonna be just fine.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Masterton winner, which is voted on by members of the Professional Hockey Writers Association, will be announced at the league\u2019s annual awards celebration.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"His performance with the Oilers, where he seized the No. 1 goaltending job after three others failed to…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":404803,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5125],"tags":[198,146,5300,5,4,24],"class_list":{"0":"post-547695","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-edmonton-oilers","8":"tag-edmonton","9":"tag-edmonton-oilers","10":"tag-edmontonoilers","11":"tag-hockey","12":"tag-nhl","13":"tag-oilers"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nhl\/116370085435166255","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/547695","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=547695"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/547695\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/404803"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=547695"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=547695"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=547695"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}