The Edmonton Oilers are poised to hire Mike Babcock as head coach. The NHL cleared him last week after an investigation into his resignation from Columbus before he'd even coached a game. Veteran Oilers players reportedly gave their blessing and the organization seems ready to move forward.
And potentially standing in the crease when Babcock blows his first whistle will be two goalies, Tristan Jarry and Connor Ingram, who have dealt with mental health issues. That combination really concerns us.
Connor Ingram's mental health story is one of the most public and courageous in the NHL. During the 2020-21 season, while isolated in Nashville's COVID bubble, the walls closed in. Undiagnosed obsessive-compulsive disorder had been quietly unravelling him for years causing compulsive rituals around contamination, driving him toward alcohol to cope with anxiety he couldn't name. He nearly retired but finally entered the NHL/NHLPA Player Assistance Program spending 40 days in treatment.
He came back and found a starting job. He won the Bill Masterton Memorial Trophy in 2024, the league's highest honour for resilience and dedication to the game.
Then, in early 2025, he entered the program a second time following the death of his mother from breast cancer. He described the depression that followed as the darkest period of his life. "I definitely wouldn't be playing hockey anymore," he said. "There's dark days, and there's days where you're a little bit of danger to yourself." He fought back again. Now he's here and playing. And we genuinely respect him for it.
Tristan Jarry's struggles are different and less publicly disclosed, but also no less real. The Pittsburgh Penguins, who drafted and developed him for over a decade, were candid about it on the way out. According to insider Josh Yohe of The Athletic, the Penguins' primary concerns with Jarry were never physical: "There has never been a question about his physical talent, but rather, his mental approach and psychological state are the concerns."
His 2024-25 season was a total collapse in confidence. Jarry is talented enough to have made two NHL All-Star teams. When his mind is settled, he's a legitimate starter. When it isn't, the numbers get ugly fast. I think that's just who he is, and the wrong environment could make it a lot worse.
Now, Mike Babcock's track record with players' psychological wellbeing is, to put it generously, complicated.
Under his watch in Toronto, rookie Mitch Marner, then 18 years old, was asked to rank his teammates' work ethic in a list that Babcock then shared with other players. Former Red Wing Johan Franzen later spoke publicly about his time under Babcock, disclosing a PTSD diagnosis. Former Leaf Daniel Winnik, asked about the potential Oilers hire earlier last week, said: "He's the only guy who's ever made me hate hockey."
In Columbus in 2023, Babcock resigned before coaching a single game after it came out that he had asked players to hand over their phones so he could scroll through personal photos, which was a total breach of privacy that left players deeply uncomfortable. The team's own president apologized to the players and called the hiring a mistake.
Babcock is also old-school in a very specific way. His methods have historically involved pressure, confrontation and tactics that often blur the line between demanding the best and tearing people down. Some players respond to that, others don't. Ingram and Jarry are two men who have dealt with psychological battles to keep playing the sport they love. And with where things are headed in Edmonton, that's what worries me most about this situation.
As former NHL goalie Carter Hutton noted recently: "I just can't see him loving the way Connor Ingram plays."
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