Frosty conditions

CALGARY, Canada -- The topic, or at least one of them, was the Wizard of Oz on a brisk morning recently here at the Saddledome, and the Edmonton Oilers’ Dustin Penner reached back into his childhood and pondered the size of the man.

“Was the Wizard of Oz short? I’ll have to Google it,” he said, sounding amused.

This wizardry had nothing to do with slick stick handling in the slot. This was about Penner’s new boss insulting his old boss, slightly shifting the landscape of the months-long feud between Ducks General Manager Brian Burke and Edmonton GM Kevin Lowe to that of one versus two, Burke against Lowe/Craig MacTavish, the Oilers’ coach.

Tonight, Penner steps onto the Ducks’ home ice for the first time since he held the Stanley Cup in June.

It was in late July when the match was lit between the two GMs. Edmonton had made a five-year, $21.25-million offer sheet to Penner, a restricted free agent who had just completed his rookie season. The Ducks declined to match, believing the offer was out of line with the salaries of proven veterans. Burke called Lowe’s move “gutless” and an “act of desperation.”

Burke’s private ruminations boiled over again in a public forum at the start of the season in a Canadian TV interview when he ripped Lowe, saying: “If I had run my team into the sewer like that, I wouldn’t throw a grenade at the other 29 teams and my own indirectly.”

Lowe responded by calling Burke an “egomaniac” and a “blowhard.” That was garden variety, however, compared to what then came from MacTavish, via the Edmonton Sun:

“He reminds me of the Wizard of Oz, where you comb his hair, put a white shirt on him, and wheel him out in front of a camera and he’s going to say whatever you guys want.”

Suddenly, the Battle of Alberta -- the rivalry between the Oilers and the Calgary Flames -- looked practically tame.

(For the record: Burke is taller than the Wizard of Oz and has significantly more hair than the person described as “a little, old man, with a bald head,” in L. Frank Baum’s book.)

MacTavish was decidedly mild-mannered in the hallway outside the dressing room here in the hours before this season’s first Calgary-Edmonton game -- the Flames would win, 4-1 -- and didn’t want to expand on the Wizard of Oz reference.

But he couldn’t totally resist.

“I don’t know. It kind of suited it, didn’t it?” MacTavish said.

No, this was not some mandated gag order from on high, he said.

“Just self-imposed. We’re not talking about anything like that. We’ve got enough of our own problems here without bringing in yesterday’s baggage,” said MacTavish, whose team is 4-7-0 after Saturday night’s 4-1 loss against the Kings. If MacTavish was content to toss one small piece of kindling on the fire, Burke kept the cover on his container of verbal gasoline. He was asked if his relationship could be repaired with Lowe, saying: “No, I’m not going to make the effort,” and had “no interest,” in doing so.

And he has no second thoughts about ripping Lowe.

“I don’t regret one comment and I’m not going to retract one comment,” Burke said. “I’ve been pretty explicit about what I felt and I’m leaving it at that.”

Asked between periods at the Kings game if he felt Burke overreacted, Lowe paused, and said: “Uh, yes. But I don’t want to comment too much on that. Hey, it’s a free world and he’s entitled to say what he wants to say. But there’s people in this business who feel that any news is good news for the National Hockey League, and I think Brian subscribes to that theory.”

To that end, someone else from the Ducks’ organization will be presenting Penner with his Stanley Cup ring tonight at the Honda Center. Of the ring, and the feud, Penner offered a twist of a line he had used previously.

“The way things have been going there, I wasn’t sure if I’d be getting CZ’s in mine,” he said.

CZ would be cubic zirconium.

“You can find humor in anything in life, I think. That’s my goal,” Penner said. “That’s good for my game. I have no problem if it’s at my expense.”

Less amusing have been his early struggles in adjusting to a new team and life, a big change for a 25-year-old who lived “not even 500 yards” from the water in Newport Beach. He struggled in the loss to the Flames -- taking two penalties leading to Calgary goals -- and seemed to be straying from the power forward game making him so effective last season in Anaheim and appeared to be trying to make the fancy play.

“Right now, I’m up and down between good games and bad games,” said Penner, who has two goals and five points in 11 games after scoring 29 goals and 45 points last season. “Those games are getting closer together, the infrequency or frequency of them. When I have the same type of game every night, then I’ll be happy.”

Said MacTavish: “He’s got plenty of horsepower under the hood. There’s lots of game there. It’s just a case of tapping it each and every night. I think the expectation is heightened on Dustin, certainly internally. I mean, personally, not internally. . . . He’s not coming in under the radar.

“He’s doing a lot of things right. It’s just not finding the puck in the back of the net. He’s creating the chances. It’s just a case where he’s gotta fine-tune the execution, the final piece of the puzzle.”

Since the loss to the Flames, there has been a slight upturn in Penner’s play on the score sheet with one goal and two assists in three games.

Perhaps the scrutiny will ease after tonight. Penner thought about how the Ducks’ fans might react.

“Tough to say. Some . . . understand the situation I was put in,” he said. “I didn’t ask for a trade. It was brought upon me.”

Like a pawn, almost?

“Like we all are in the NHL -- we’re all commodities, or pieces of meat,” Penner said.

Times Staff Writer Eric Stephens contributed to this report.

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lisa.dillman@latimes.com