- Connor Ingram announced his retirement at 29 in an Instagram post Friday night
- The 2024 Masterton winner played 134 NHL games for Nashville, Arizona, Utah and Edmonton
- Read below for what Elliotte Friedman says Ingram is doing next
Connor Ingram is walking away from hockey at 29.
The goaltender announced his retirement Friday night on Instagram, ending a career that covered 134 NHL games and four organizations. He kept the goodbye to two lines.
“Don’t be sad it’s over, be happy it happened. Thanks hockey, I owe ya.”
Here’s his post:
Ingram also spelled out what comes next, and Elliotte Friedman flagged that part of the post. He is going back to school for psychology, with the stated goal of using what he learns to help other people.
Tampa Bay drafted him 88th overall in 2016 and never played him a single game. A 2019 trade moved him into Nashville’s system, and even then he waited two more years before his NHL debut arrived on Oct. 24, 2021, a win over Minnesota.
Arizona is where it clicked. Ingram went 23-21-3 with a 2.91 goals-against average and six shutouts across 50 games in 2023-24, and the league handed him the Bill Masterton Memorial Trophy that spring.
That award was about more than the save percentage. Ingram has spoken publicly for years about obsessive-compulsive disorder and depression, and he leaned on the NHL and NHLPA Player Assistance Program at multiple points in his career. The psychology plan lines up with a guy who spent his playing days being unusually direct about all of it.
He followed the franchise to Salt Lake City, then landed in Edmonton on an October 2025 trade. Last season was his best statistical run: 32 games, a 16-10-3 record, a 2.60 GAA, two shutouts, then five playoff starts before the Oilers went out in the first round.
Free agency opened July 1 and nothing materialized. Back in August we looked at Columbus as a possible landing spot once Elvis Merzlikins needed shoulder surgery. That call never came.
Ingram leaves with 55 wins, nine shutouts and a Masterton trophy, and a next step that has nothing to do with a crease.
