Kris Knoblauch named Connor Ingram his starting goalie on Sunday morning, and then Ingram went out and won the game.
The Edmonton Oilers beat the Nashville Predators 3-1 at Rogers Place, and as much as anything else that's happened over this brutal stretch of a season, that result and the way goaltending in this city has gone should be talked about.
"Right now, we are going to be playing the best goalie who's giving us his best chance of winning each night," began Kris Knoblauch at morning skate. "We've got, I believe, one back-to-back later in April. So it's not that our goaltender can't be playing all these games.
"I think it's a heavy workload to be giving Connor all those games. But yeah, right now, Connor is our starting goalie. He will get in the majority of the starts as of now until something changes."
The old saying goes that if you have two starting goaltenders, you don't have one. The Oilers learned that lesson the hard way with Calvin Pickard and Stuart Skinner, a situation that dragged on long past the point where everyone could see where it was heading.
Knoblauch had a chance to do the same thing here. He could hedge, split starts, keep things vague, but instead, he just said it plainly. Ingram is the guy.
"Having your coach behind you is huge," said Ingram. "But at the end of the day, my job never changes. I come in and be the same person I've been for the last three or four months. So it's exciting for me, but my job, like I've said a thousand times, is just stopping pucks. It's the same thing every day."
Ingram came back through the player assistance program and joined the Oilers tandem after a stint with the Bakersfield Condors. He's since had seven of the last ten starts, and the results have backed up the workload. Knoblauch didn't name him the starter as a vote of confidence or a motivational gesture; he named him the starter because the results warranted it.
There's also something to be said for the routine itself. Hockey players are superstitious, but goalies are crazy. They operate on rhythm and repetition more than any other position, and when you're sharing starts, that routine is constantly interrupted. Say you have a bad game, then you sit for two or three days waiting for your next one, turning it over in your head.
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"You have a tough day or a good day, you don't have time to think about it," added Ingram. "It's just the repetition of it, going out there and doing your job. But it all turns into such a jumble that you don't really separate from game to game. It's just kind of go out there and do your job no matter what."
Which brings us to Tristan Jarry. He was brought to Edmonton to be the answer, the goalie who would finally take this team from a Stanley Cup finalist to a Stanley Cup winner. The argument that the Oilers' defence has let him down this season has some validity, but Jarry hasn't been good enough.
Players on eight-figure contracts are expected to perform at a level that justifies the investment, and Jarry has been nowhere near that standard since arriving in Edmonton.
At some point, the defence-in-front-of-him argument stops being a full explanation and starts being a partial excuse. The Oilers needed him to be a difference maker, and right now, Ingram is the one making a difference.
Where this leaves Jarry is an open question, and it may not matter much until the summer, when the GM has to decide what this team looks like going forward. What the Oilers can't do is get distracted by it.
The San Jose Sharks visit Rogers Place Tuesday night with the Wild Card race still unsettled, and a first-round playoff spot is far from secured. Ingram will likely start. He's earned that, too.
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