Connor Ungar has become one of those Oilers prospects fans can’t help but latch onto.
He hasn’t played an NHL game. He spent most of his pro time in the ECHL.
He’s still sitting behind Edmonton’s more established goaltenders on the depth chart heading into this season. And yet, the buzz around him keeps growing.
A big part of that comes from what he did with Bakersfield last season. In 13 games with the Condors, Ungar went 9-2-2 with a .923 save percentage and a 2.51 goals-against average.
He won his first six starts and added a shutout against the Ontario Reign. Before that, he posted a .945 save percentage in Greensboro, a .944 mark in Fort Wayne and a .913 save percentage during a longer run in Orlando.
Edmonton liked what it saw enough to hand him another one-year, two-way deal in June worth $850,000 at the NHL level.
That kind of rise is exactly the sort of underdog story fans tend to embrace. Ungar wasn’t drafted, and when Edmonton signed him out of Brock University in 2024, he wasn’t being billed as the organization’s next great goalie prospect.
His path started with five seasons in the WHL, where he played for Brandon, Red Deer and Moose Jaw before moving on to Brock. There, in his lone season, he went 20-6-0 with a .932 save percentage and earned OUA West goaltender and rookie of the year honors.
The professional climb has been far less tidy. Ungar opened his first full season in Fort Wayne, then spent 2025-26 bouncing around Edmonton’s crowded minor-league crease, moving from Greensboro to Fort Wayne, then to Orlando and eventually Bakersfield.
That kind of churn didn’t stop fans from paying attention. If anything, it made the story more compelling.
When Edmonton announced the extension in June, some fans immediately joked about another Connor joining the organization. Others were already talking about preseason looks or hoping he’d finally get a steady run of starts in Bakersfield.
The support really picked up during his Condors stretch last winter. Fans pushed for him to get more work, and when he was reassigned to Orlando in February, plenty of them took that as a step he had not earned. By January, the conversation had reached the point where prospect talk around the Oilers included comments that the organization would eventually have to "have a conversation about Connor Ungar," which is a lot of attention for a goalie who had spent the previous season entirely in the ECHL.
None of that means Edmonton should rush to declare anything about his future. Ungar turns 25 during the coming season, and the organization still has other young goaltenders moving through the pipeline, including Samuel Jonsson and Nathaniel Day.
Edmonton also added Devon Levi this summer. So the excitement is real, but so is the reality: Ungar has earned notice, not an NHL job.
Even so, it’s easy to see why fans have gravitated toward him. Prospect lists are usually packed with players whose paths are mapped out long before they turn pro. Ungar has taken the harder route, building his case one stop at a time and proving himself every time he’s been handed another chance.
For an organization that has spent plenty of money and draft capital trying to solve its goaltending, the appeal is obvious. An undrafted Calgary kid coming through U Sports, the ECHL and into the NHL would make for a pretty special story. Nobody knows if Ungar will finish that climb, but he’s done enough already to give Oilers fans a reason to keep watching.
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