The Oilers still have two more years until the their pork-chop winger's contract comes to an end.

EDMONTON -- The corn-fed Dustin Penner squeezed back into Craig MacTavish's lineup on Thursday night, resuming a relationship that has become hockey's version of staying together for the sake of the kids.

MacTavish can't stand this guy as a player. But he's stuck with him for three more seasons at (gulp!) US $4.25 million.

Penner - or Dustin Penne, as he is known on the talk shows here - has had it up to here with MacTavish desperately pushing his buttons, like Homer Simpson when the reactor is ready to blow.

Frankly, it's a relationship that never had a chance.

MacTavish made his way as a player with guile, work ethic and gamesmanship. The 26-year-old is blessed with considerable more size and perhaps skill than his coach was, but goes harder to the fridge than he does to the net.

So, where does it all go from here? Does Penner gets in shape for the first time in his life, becomes an annual 35-goal scorer and thanks MacTavish in his Hall of Fame acceptance speech?

Or do the Oilers farm him out down the stretch and buy Penner out for $8 million this summer?

What is crystal clear today however, nearly two years since then-Edmonton general manager Kevin Lowe busted the old boy's club wide open by lifting Penner off Anaheim's roster with that unheard-of Group II offer sheet, is that Lowe's gambit was a disaster.

Offering Tomas Vanek $50 million the week before? Good idea.

Doggedly, desperately staying in the Group II market to land Penner at five years and $21.25 million was foolish -- pure and simple.

That deal stands today, league-wide, as arguably the worst contract handed out in the last two seasons. And it's got three more years to run.

Why did it happen this way? Let's discuss:

Certainly, no clearer explanation of what the coach thinks of the player has been proffered than when an exasperated MacTavish blew up on Nov. 16, 2008, the day between two games watched by Penner from the press box.

"He's not competitive enough or fit enough to help us, so why put him back in? He's never been fit enough to help us," MacTavish said that day. "We signed him to be a top-two line player and that's kind of where it ended. The difference was we thought the contract was a starting point, and he's viewed it as a finish line.

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

He might have to. That is, if MacTavish lasts that long with a coach-killer like Penner on his team.

MacTavish was back to praising Penner prior to Thursday night's game against Atlanta. He's back in, so the coach is forced back on-board.

MacTavish pulled Penner aside on the practice ice for two minutes Thursday for yet another tête-à-tête. This guy requires more maintenance than a used Skoda, more meetings than Peter Pocklington has with his bankruptcy lawyers.

"We've had the same kind of conversations all year," Penner admitted Thursday. "He wants me to be able to play in a position where I can help the team.

"Less anticipation, more skating. More acting instead of reacting."

Acting like a professional athlete, perhaps.

Tonight, Edmonton's highest-paid forward re-enters the lineup as a fourth-line winger. They're stuck with this guy for three more years at $4.25 million, a contract that makes him radioactive.

You couldn't trade Penner if you tied $1 million around his neck and called the Phoenix Coyotes. The Maple Leafs wouldn't take him for Jason Blake - straight up.

So, who gets the majority of the blame here?

Well, the player may or may not be a $4 million player but any of us would sign the contract if it were offered to us.

He is, however, grossly out of shape and has been his entire National Hockey League career.

There is nothing that speaks of an absence of professional pride more than an athlete who won't get in shape, or one who does not work at his craft. The Oilers pork-chop winger does neither, recently taking an optional skate off in the midst of a nine-game goalless streak, then proclaiming when he was banished to the press box, "I guess one bad game and you're out."

What is perhaps more disturbing than Penner's feeble work ethic however, was Lowe's research two summers ago.

After all the vitriol had settled between then-Anaheim GM Brian Burke and Lowe, what emerged was that the Oilers were perhaps ignorant of Penner's pea-sized heart. More than one person in the Anaheim organization revealed that they had pushed, prodded, begged and badgered Penner every step of the way; that he had never been in shape as a Duck.

Perhaps Lowe, like his mentor Glen Sather, figured he could reclaim this kid, and teach how to rightly approach the game. If that was the goal, Lowe bit off far more than he could chew.

Did Lowe do his homework on this guy? Should he have known he was getting the modern day Vladimir Krutov?

Lowe wanted a big body to play with Ales Hemsky. In this case, one out of two isn't good enough.

"It's all mental. You have to … build a wall on yesterday, and focus on what you can do today," said Penner, who had 14 goals and 29 points heading into the Atlanta game. "After the last time [in the press box], I came back and had a bunch of good games. Then, for whatever reason, it drops off. That's something I struggle with. Consistency."

"He drifts," MacTavish explained, "from that [effective] style of play, and gives us the inconsistency that we've seen over time here."

Three more years, Craig. That's all. Three more years.