Poor Dustin Penner. Okay, perhaps “poor” isn’t the ideal descriptor of the Oilers left winger, what with his $4.25-million-a-season-for-this-and-the-next-three-seasons salary and all. I mean, have you looked at the Oilers’ plus/minus statistics lately? Have any idea who leads the team in that category, with a plus-8 (check) that is a full five points better than his closest teammate?
You got it — Dustin Penner. The same dude Craig MacTavish introduced to the underside of Edmonton’s careening bus last week when the coach called the player “not competitive enough or fit enough to help” the team.
But it isn’t only Penner who has caused the Oilers to lose five of their last eight. He isn’t the root cause of Edmonton’s 27th-ranked penalty kill, nor his team’s faceoff percentage that is even worse (at 46.5 percent efficiency, the third-worst in the league).
No, it has truly been a team effort that’s put the Oilers in the middle of the Western Conference pack. And maybe that’s where Edmonton deserves to be at this point, in spite of MacTavish’s pre-season crowing that his squad could legitimately challenge for a championship.
Whatever the case, the last thing either Penner or the team needs is for him to be isolated and ostracized for his sins, however distasteful MacTavish finds them.
