The knee-jerk with the rabids on social media is that they have to pull the plug on the feel-good-story Connor Ingram and go to somebody else in net for Game 4, even if it\u2019s Tristan Jarry, who has been less popular with their loud voices than Stuart Skinner.<\/p>\n
I don\u2019t think it\u2019s a good idea.<\/p>\n
Yes, Edmonton Oilers<\/a> GM Stan Bowman has a seat at the table and might clear his throat when the topic of goaltenders comes up before his team tries to dig their way out of their 2-1 hole in Anaheim. He did, after all, deal the beleaguered Skinner and throw in his 4-5 defenceman Brett Kulak to make the money work on Jarry\u2019s $5.385-million AAV when he did that December trade. So, he has a dog in this fight.<\/p>\n But managers usually stay away from coaching decisions in the playoffs.<\/p>\n That\u2019s what he has his head coach Kris Knoblauch for.<\/p>\n That\u2019s why Knoblauch has a goalie coach Peter Aubry.<\/p>\n They have the input and the intel. It\u2019s their call, their gut, their eyes.<\/p>\n Knoblauch wouldn\u2019t say Saturday who Oilers Game 4 starter would be.<\/p>\n So, again, I come back with Ingram even if the intel suggests, or implores, a change because the Oilers\u2019 Masterton trophy nominee has given up 11 goals the last two Oilers losses, after he saved them in the third period in Game 1 with two big stops on Bennett Sennecke and Leo Carlsson in the Oilers 4-3 win.<\/p>\n \u201cI don\u2019t think Ingram was bad last night,\u201d said Hall of Famer Grant Fuhr, who watched Game 3 between his work as a media commentator in Coachella Valley, the AHL team that is currently playing the Oilers farm team in Bakersfield in the playoffs.<\/p>\n \u201cBut sometimes you have to make a change to get the players\u2019 attention,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n Ingram won five of his last eight regular-season starts, and two of his losses were 1-0 in L.A. and 2-1 in a shootout against Colorado. In six of Jarry\u2019s last eight starts, he had save percentages of .806, .741, .839, .800, .840 and .750. One of those starts was a 6-5 loss in Anaheim.<\/p>\n Ingram\u2019s .899 seasonal save percentage was 24th. Jarry\u2019s .882 was 51st.<\/p>\n Yes, Ingram\u2019s .849 save percentage through the first three games of round one is roll-your-eyes stuff and he\u2019s certainly part of the problem. But his save percentage hasn\u2019t been much worse than Ducks\u2019 goalie Lukas Dostal (. 874) and Ingram\u2019s environment is way worse, trying to clean up the chaotic defensive mistakes.<\/p>\n Related<\/p>\n After Game 1, the Ducks mentioned they wanted to get more bodies in front of Ingram \u2014 yeah, all teams say that, but they have done so \u2014 and they have delivered several screened shots for goals on Ingram. As per Kevin Woodley, the founder and managing editor at InGoal magazine, Ingram has seen 13 scoring chances in the three games where a screen is the primary threat and only Boston\u2019s Jeremy Swayman has seen more (15). Dostal has seen 11. Both Ingram and Dostal have given up four screened goals so far, tied for the most in the playoffs.<\/p>\n Of course, it\u2019s also true that there are several more layers of bodies in front of goalies in the playoffs than in regular season, where they have to find pucks, head on a swivel, hoping shots hit them. Then, when they do, there\u2019s loose change to scoop up. The Ducks wanted to do that, and they\u2019ve been good at it. But it\u2019s also incumbent on the Oilers defenders to clear some of those, right?<\/p>\n Ingram has given up five goals on rebounds, certainly revealing. Dostal, three.<\/p>\n So, both teams have watched video and seen that tendency. In Ingram\u2019s case, he relies heavily on his reads \u2014 he has said that publicly \u2014 and working his way from first to last minute on what he sees and his strong athletic ability. The Ducks have made a conscious effort to block his vision, like all teams do with goalies, maybe feeling that Ingram doesn\u2019t move as quickly to get to rebounds as some goalies.<\/p>\n \u201cWhether or not the Ducks are targeting Ingram with traffic any more than most teams do with goalies come playoff time, the reality is those chances \u2014 and the rebounds from them that challenge his lateral recovery speed \u2014 have been a massive part of Anaheim\u2019s success offensively,\u201d said Woodley, who studies goals and goalies for a living and writes very well about it.<\/p>\n \u201cThere are some screens that I argue Ingram could have managed differently and somewhere his defenders appear to be in the wrong lanes,\u201d he said. \u201cBut both sides are going to have to find a way to improve those results.\u201d<\/p>\n Would it be any different with Jarry, if he was starting? From watching him the last several months, the active Jarry has had pucks ricocheting off his blue pads, too, and he\u2019s been beaten, like all goalies, with heavy traffic. Chances are the Ducks won\u2019t change how they operate, no matter who\u2019s in net.<\/p>\n Fuhr says it\u2019s a coin flip whether they switch out Ingram for Jarry, with the Oilers desperately needing a win Sunday.<\/p>\n \u201cI would say it\u2019s 50-50 right now. But if Ingram plays and you lose the next one, then you have to make a change,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n Is changing the goalie for the Game 4 Oiler going to fix what\u2019s really wrong, like the play in front of him? And is there anything to suggest that Jarry has a heater in him? Both good questions. He\u2019s played 310 NHL games and we all know the former Edmonton Oil Kings Memorial Cup winner has talent, but he\u2019s only had eight playoff games, going 2-6 with an .891 save percentage.<\/p>\n Absolutely, when your team has scored 12 goals in three games and your team is behind in a series, that is not a good look for Ingram. But I still stick with him on Sunday, maybe because Jarry hasn\u2019t played in a game in six weeks.<\/p>\n This isn\u2019t quite like last season, where Calvin Pickard was the clear Oilers backup but had a strong regular-season, playing 36 games with a .900 save percentage and a 22-10-1 record, and there was no hesitation to give him a shot in place of Skinner after two quick losses in Los Angeles.<\/p>\n Should Ingram be on a short leash if he does get the Game 4 start over Jarry?<\/p>\n \u201cIn my world, yes,\u201d said Fuhr, one of the game\u2019s greatest playoff performers and one of the 100 top players of all time.<\/p>\n Bookmark our website and support our journalism:\u00a0Don\u2019t\u00a0miss the news you need to know \u2014 add\u00a0EdmontonJournal.com<\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0EdmontonSun.com<\/a>\u00a0to your bookmarks and\u00a0sign up for our newsletters here.<\/a>\u00a0<\/p>\n You can also support our journalism by becoming a digital subscriber. Subscribers gain unlimited access to The Edmonton Journal, Edmonton Sun, National Post and 13 other Canadian news sites. Support us by subscribing today:\u00a0The Edmonton Journal<\/a>\u00a0|\u00a0<\/a>The Edmonton Sun<\/a>.<\/a>\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The knee-jerk with the rabids on social media is that they have to pull the plug on the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":17083,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[1929,3303,3072,4793,1135,53,52,263,10334,10335,647,6011,6012,3076,6020,3073,462],"class_list":{"0":"post-20562","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-edmonton","8":"tag-anaheim-ducks","9":"tag-boston","10":"tag-brett-kulak","11":"tag-calvin-pickard","12":"tag-colorado","13":"tag-connor-ingram","14":"tag-edmonton","15":"tag-edmonton-oilers","16":"tag-grant-fuhr","17":"tag-jeremy-swayman","18":"tag-kings","19":"tag-leo-carlsson","20":"tag-lukas-dostal","21":"tag-stuart-skinner","22":"tag-tim-washe","23":"tag-tristan-jarry","24":"tag-zach-hyman"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20562","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=20562"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20562\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/17083"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=20562"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=20562"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=20562"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}