Utah Hockey Club goaltender Connor Ingram has reentered the NHL/NHLPA player assistance program.
The league and players’ union announced Sunday that Ingram will be away from the team indefinitely while he receives care. Ingram spent time in the program in 2021 when he was in the Nashville Predators’ organization.
Ingram, 27, has spoken publicly about his undiagnosed obsessive-compulsive disorder that led him to drink to cope with anxiety. Ingram won the Bill Masterton Memorial Trophy last season for perseverance, sportsmanship and dedication to hockey after establishing himself as a full-time NHL player.
It is unclear why Ingram chose to seek care this time. Confidentiality is guaranteed for players and their family members.
Help is offered for such issues as alcohol or drug abuse, mental health issues, sleeping problems, or a gambling addiction. An announcement is made only when a player becomes unavailable to his team during the season.
Ingram is the second player to be announced as entering the program since this season started. Detroit Red Wings goalie Jack Campbell went in a few days before opening night. Five players took part last season, the same number who participated over the previous three years combined.
Ingram has struggled in his third season with the franchise that was the Arizona Coyotes before being sold and moving to Salt Lake City. He has lost 12 of his 22 starts and has a 3.27 goals-against average and .882 save percentage, in the process ceding the starting job to Karel Vejmelka, who just agreed to a five-year, $23.75 million contract extension. Ingram last played Feb. 22.
He was on Nashville’s practice squad early in the pandemic-delayed and shortened 2021 season when he went into the player assistance program and left the Predators in late January. He returned to play a handful of games for the Chicago Wolves of the American Hockey League that spring, but it wasn’t until he sold his house and cars and moved from his hometown of Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, to Nashville that summer that he met his fiancée and got back on track.
“I just restarted,” Ingram said last year when he won the Masterton. “It was good for me, and it was good to restart.”
Ingram made his NHL debut Oct. 24, 2021 — roughly nine months after going into the program — and appeared in four playoff games in the spring of 2022 when Juuse Saros was sidelined by injury and David Rittich faltered in the first-round opener. He was claimed off waivers by Arizona in 2022.
Utah recalled goaltender Jaxson Stauber from the Tucson Roadrunners of the American Hockey League. Stauber, 25, has posted a 2-1-1 record with one shutout, a 2.23 GAA and .925 save percentage in four games this season with Utah.
The Associated Press and Field Level Media contributed to this report.
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