The first goalie to ever play for the Utah Hockey Club is hanging up his pads for good.
Connor Ingram announced his retirement via Instagram Friday evening with a simple, yet profound caption: “Don’t be sad it’s over, be happy it happened. Thanks hockey, I owe ya.”
The post included photos of him with the Edmonton Oilers, Arizona Coyotes, Nashville Predators and Tampa Bay Lightning — four of the five organizations in which he played.
Ingram, 29, skated in 134 regular-season NHL games, including 22 for Utah. He also saw nine games’ worth of playoff action, most recently with the Oilers in their 2026 first-round series against the Anaheim Ducks.
One of the most heroic moment of Ingram’s career came just five games into it.
Amid injuries to teammates and a necessary relief effort in Game 1 against the Colorado Avalanche in 2022, he got the start for Game 2 and stopped 49 of 51 shots. Although Ingram and the Predators would concede that series to the eventual Stanley Cup champions, he earned himself a reputation.
That reputation led the Coyotes to claim him off waivers the following fall, affording him his first full NHL season. The following season, he’d steal the starter’s net from Karel Vejmelka, and he kept it for the beginning of 2024-25 when the team moved to Utah.
Ahead of the franchise’s second season, the now-Mammoth traded him to the Oilers, the closest team to his hometown of Imperial, Saskatchewan. While he didn’t grow up an Oilers fan, he did enjoy the opportunity to play with Connor McDavid and Leon Draisaitl.
“It’s awesome,” he told the Deseret News in March ahead of his first game back in Utah. “I mean, yeah, it’s something that will be cool forever, you know, you played with two of the top — what do you want to say, top-three, top-five (hockey players in the world) — however you slot them in there. It’s pretty cool.”
Ingram is also regarded for his advocacy of mental health awareness. He twice went through the NHL/NHLPA player assistance program and has spoken publicly on a number of occasions about the importance of seeking help when necessary.
“It’s like a nagging injury,” he told NHL.com in 2024 of mental health. “If you don’t take care of it, it’s going to get worse. For the rest of my life, I’ll sit in a stranger’s chair and tell them my problems once a week. It’s just a fact of my life.”
