If you've yet to hear Oilers coach Craig MacTavish's assessment of Dustin Penner that ran in the Edmonton Journal on Sunday, well, soon it'll be the story of the day. It already is in the Oilers wing of hockey's blogosphere.

A sampling of the coach's words for one of the most well paid third liners in the league:

"When we signed Dustin, we thought he'd be a top two-line player. We thought the contract ($4.25 million average for five years) was a starting point for him, but he views it as a finish line."

"I can't watch it, certainly for another two-and-a-half years."

"You can't throw gratuitous ice-time at a player that inconsistent. It's his competitiveness. He's not competitive enough or fit enough to help us, so why put him back in?"

We've all seen and heard the "tough love" motivational techniques from coaches, but there's certainly a line involved, and MacTavish is crossing it here — big time. For one, Penner has not been nearly bad enough to warrant such a tirade, and even if he had been, he's an untradeable player, someone the Oilers coach is going to have to coax whatever he can out of the next three and a half years given Penner's $4.5-million price tag and meagre production.

What these comments read as, more than anything, are an indictment of the fact this player is even on the roster at that ticket, and that's a troublesome road for any coach to travel down. Lowetide says this is an indication of just where MacTavish stands these days — and it's not all that far from where Denis Savard and Barry Melrose were not too long ago:

This is the third time this season Craig MacTavish has taken verbal shots at his players in public. Each have been reported, and one imagines that they have some impact on the people involved. That's a double edged razor. I think these are the end times for Craig MacTavish as a head coach for the Edmonton Oilers. You can only shit on people for so long, no matter how correct you are in saying it. After awhile, they quit on you and it's impossible to fire the whole team. And it's also impossible to trade Dustin Penner.

Now in his eighth season as Oilers head coach, MacTavish is one of the longest tenured coaches in the league, not far off of Nashville iron man Barry Trotz, and another playoff miss would almost certainly spell the end of his term in Edmonton. Perhaps desperate times call for desperate measures, but it's hard to imagine this motivating anything from anyone in that locker room.

Jonathan Willis has a good look at Penner's pertinent numbers this season, and it's not hard to see where his production's gone. Last season, he finished second overall on the Oilers in total time played on the power play, and this time around he's 11th and averaging about a minute and a half a game. Nearly 50 per cent of Penner's points last season game with the man advantage, and without those minutes, he's essentially a 30-point player.

On a team allowing three goals against a game, he hasn't been a defensive liability and has contributed very little to a penalty kill near the bottom of the league at 74.7 per cent.

And David Staples says Penner's been put in a position to fail given his linemates and opportunities to this point.

The biggest problem with this whole scenario? Penner was, is and will continue to be exactly the same player he was in Anaheim when the Oilers pulled the dump truck up to his lawn and served up a gift of an offer sheet.

He is 26 years old, big and slow, a player with good hands who was a late bloomer who quite conceivably may have hit his peak. Tearing his head off now doesn't change anything.

Except for MacTavish, who's on his way down a slippery slope.

Look out below, Mr. Melrose.