Oilers Need to Consider Starting Jarry Over Ingram in Game 4 – The Hockey Writers – Edmonton Oilers

After losing 7-4 to the Anaheim Ducks at Honda Center on Friday (April 24), the Edmonton Oilers are trailing 2-1 in the first round of the 2026 Stanley Cup Playoffs.

Through the first three games of the best-of-seven series, the Oilers have allowed a whopping 16 goals, most in the NHL this postseason. Edmonton prevailed by a score 4-3 in Game 1 before suffering a 6-4 defeat in Game 2 at Rogers Place.

Goaltender Connor Ingram has started all three games for Edmonton, making 79 saves on 93 shots in 178:39 of game time. After giving up three goals in Edmonton’s Game 1 victory, Ingram conceded five goals in Game 2 and was scored on six times in Game 3, becoming just the second Oilers netminder in the last 42 years to allow at least five goals in consecutive playoff appearances.

No one is pointing their finger at Ingram as the reason Edmonton is behind in the series. Defensively, the Oilers have been a dumpster fire, and they’ve committed numerous errors leading to odd-man rushes and dangerous scoring chances for the Ducks.

But Ingram’s statistics are also too dreadful to ignore. The 29-year-old currently has a goals-against average (GAA) of 4.70 and a save percentage (SV%) of .849, which rank last and second last, respectively, among all goalies to see action this postseason. In each of the three games of the series, Ingram has given up three goals in a single period.

So it comes as no surprise that Edmonton may be turning to Tristan Jarry to start between the pipes in Game 4 on Sunday (April 26) at Honda Center. While Oilers head coach Kris Knoblauch didn’t say one way or the other during his media availability on Saturday (April 25), Oilers play-by-play announcer Jack Michaels posted on social media that his “hunch” is that Jarry will start Game 4, and Sportsnet columnist Mark Spector posted on social media that a Jarry start is “feeling more and more plausible.”

It’s certainly understandable why Knoblauch would be considering replacing Ingram with Jarry. But is that the wise move to make?

Ingram Can’t Be Blamed for Losses

Ingram was the only reason his team headed into the first intermission trailing by just one goal, 2-1, on Friday. The goalie was under constant fire during the first 20 minutes of Game 3, facing 20 shots, and he stopped the first 16 of them before Anaheim tallied twice late in the frame. In the second period, Ingram remained solid, stopping 10 of 11 shots. The score was 3-3 through 40 minutes.

Things went off the rails for Edmonton in the third period, when Ingram was beaten three times on seven shots in the third. Anaheim broke open a tie game by scoring twice in a span of 42 seconds early in the third period, with both goals coming on two-on-one rushes that were the result of turnovers by Edmonton in the offensive zone.

Ingram Hasn’t Made the Big Save

It’s hard to fault Ingram for any of the goals he’s given up in the series. But if there is a critique to be made of the 29-year-old netminder, it’s that he hasn’t made the proverbial big, timely save.

The Oilers could have used a stop on Friday when Leo Carlsson put Anaheim up 5-3 just moments after Ducks forward Beckett Sennecke had broken the tie. They could have used one when Ducks winger Jeffrey Viel restored his team’s two-goal lead late in the third period, after Oilers captain Connor McDavid had finally scored his first goal of the series to pull Edmonton within one at 5-4.

It was the same story in Game 2 on Wednesday, when Anaheim’s Cutter Gauthier scored the winning goal at 15:08 of the third period, only 77 seconds after Josh Samanski had sniped the puck past Ducks goaltender Lukas Dostal to tie the game.

Are these Anaheim goals coming on shots that the average goalie should be expected to stop? No. If a team is going to make a Stanley Cup run, do they need their goalie to make saves that the average goalie wouldn’t? Yes.

Jarry Struggled During the Regular Season

Jarry struggled during the regular season after being acquired in a trade with the Pittsburgh Penguins. Over a 50-day span from Jan. 22 to March 12, he had a record of 3-5-0 with a ghastly 5.51 GAA and .822 SV%.

In the six-plus weeks since, Jarry has played just 200:10 over four appearances, going 2-0-1 with a GAA of 2.70 and SV% of .873. While those numbers weren’t terrible, a couple of decent games weren’t nearly enough to convince anyone that Jarry could be relied upon in the postseason.

Jarry’s NHL postseason experience is limited to just eight games, all with the Penguins, and he’s won only two of them. But the 30-year-old is no novice, with 326 NHL regular-season games under his belt. Plus, he’s brought a championship to Edmonton before, backstopping the Edmonton Oil Kings of the Western Hockey League (WHL) to the Memorial Cup as a teenager in 2014.

Goalie Switch Could Give Oilers Spark

Everything else aside, a simple goalie switch could be the jolt needed to wake up the two-time defending Western Conference champions, who don’t appear to be dialled in. Making a change between the pipes is one of the oldest tricks in the coaching playbook, and it worked with this very team just 12 months ago.

Edmonton fell behind the Los Angeles Kings 2-0 in the first round of the 2025 Stanley Cup Playoffs, losing Game 1 by a score of 6-5 and Game 2 by a score of 6-2. Those two defeats were eerily similar to Games 2 and 3 against Anaheim this year, with Edmonton’s skaters looking all out of sorts and goaltender Stuart Skinner getting shelled for 11 goals on 58 shots.

For Game 3 against the Kings, Knoblauch opted to go with Calvin Pickard as his starting goalie, and the rest is history. The Oilers came back to eliminate Los Angeles in six games and carried that momentum forward through the next two rounds on their run to the Stanley Cup Final.

All these are factors that Knoblauch will be weighing as he makes one of the most consequential decisions of his coaching career. Oilers fans will be waiting with bated breath to find out whether it will be Ingram or Jarry skating out for the national anthems in Anaheim on Sunday night.