DENVER • This is why hockey’s so weird. So unpredictable, so stressful, so inspiring.

You get hardened men like Connor Ingram doing hard things under a hard sports spotlight.

Who’s Connor Ingram? Good question. Google introduced me to him, while Connor Ingram was introducing himself to the mighty Colorado Avalanche and crazy Ball Arena crowd. The Avalanche and Nashville Predators went to overtime late Thursday, and the Avs won 2-1 when Cale Makar slapped in the game-winner.

The reason the game needed overtime was Connor Ingram. Wait till you hear his story.

The Avs outplayed the Preds from the second period on, more than doubling their shots on goal and peppering Connor Ingram, the third-string goalie for the Predators, from puck drop to final horn. The Avs hold a 2-0 series lead.

Game 3 is Saturday afternoon in Nashville.

But what happened Thursday night is why the Avalanche — despite their status as big favorites to win the Stanley Cup — are going to stress out their fans, themselves and a solid chunk of Colorado along the way. Hot goalies, man. Hot goalies in the playoffs are the ultimate equalizer. They’re the Ace card, and they can come from nowhere. And Connor Ingram stood on his head.

Let’s be real about what happened in Game 2: the final score should’ve been 7-2 (or something like that) in favor of the Avs, like it was in Game 1. Connor Ingram is why it wasn’t.

This is going to be a long Stanley Cup playoffs run by the Avs. There will be lots of words and praise and criticisms written about Joe Sakic and Jared Bednar and Nathan MacKinnon, and they’re going to earn most of the above. It’s time these Avs broke through. But despite the loss, the Game 2 story was Connor Ingram.

Props, dude.

Connor Ingram — he’s a both-names guy — put on a show. He gave up a goal to MacKinnon on the first shot of the game — then he stopped 48 straight shots (until Makar breathed a huge sigh of relief with the winner.) Ball Arena’s a rock concert these days, and it was right around the 10-minute mark of the third period the Ball Arena crowd moved from singing and dancing and awaiting the game-winner to… wondering if 1996 Patrick Roy had skated into net for the Preds. Connor Ingram was unbelievable.

In Game 3,the Avs might light up Connor Ingram for seven goals, because they’ve done that 10 times this season — the most by a team since 1996.

But Connor Ingram had his moment, and I expect a lot of folks out there can relate to what it meant. See, Connor Ingram is Nashville’s backup-to-the-backup goalie. Its third-stringer. He was shoved into action against the NHL’s best scoring teams, one of the best scoring teams seen here, and this was his second playoff game. Ever.

But professional athletes do stuff like that from time to time, and that’s not why I’m pointing out Connor Ingram. I’m pointing out Connor Ingram because nine months ago he entered the league’s player-assistance program, where he was diagnosed with obsessive-compulsive disorder, according to a brilliant story in The Tennessean. Mental health issues like that are no joke, and except for this column, the mental health aspect of life got crapped on for two years.

Almost everything else was practically ignored.

Respect, Connor Ingram. In his fifth career start, he gave MacKinnon, Makar and the Avalanche fits. There are times in sports where you marvel at athletes and it has little to do with them being athletes, and this was one of those times. He stoned MacKinnon, point blank. He stuffed a Makar breakaway. He gloved a Nazem Kadri one-timer. Connor Ingram put on a show, and it served as a reminder: As good as these Avalanche are, hockey gets weird and goalies get hot.

The Avs and Preds have seen this scenario before. If you have a good memory, or Google, the Connor Ingram show reminded of Andrew “The Hamburglar” Hammond from the playoff series between the Avs and Preds in 2018. Then, it was Hammond stealing a game from the favorites. Now, it was Connor Ingram stoning the favorites. Then, the favorites ultimately moved on. Now, the Avalanche ultimately will move on.

But Game 2 of this first-round series was a good time for a couple things. One, the Avalanche can bring the heat, get rejected over and over and find themselves in a tough spot — and still win. That’s big. Two, the human side of sports always trumps the final score, and the opposing third-string goalie who climbed a personal mountain to get here should be celebrated. The Avs won Game 2, and Connor Ingram is the big story.