Who’s a hockey puck? The latest upheaval at the embattled drugmaker is courtesy of none other than Eugene Melnyk, who is making good on his promises to wage a messy proxy battle by promoting his own slate of directors, which includes a former ceo from Biovail’s bygone days.

Melnyk, who along with three former and current senior execs were charged by the Securities and Exchange Commission for engaging in fraudulent accounting schemes and making misstatements to analysts and investors, made the move after criticizing Biovail’s strategy to boost its stock price. Melnyk, who owns the Ottawa Senators hockey teams, holds 12 percent of the shares, by the way.

“One of the main problems right now is that you have a dysfunctional board of directors that doesn’t have the institutional knowledge that can ask a ceo the second, third and fourth questions when the ceo makes a presentation on the status of a company,” Melnyk tells Reuters.

Melnyk wants an eight-person development committee headed by Bruce Brydon, who was ceo from 1995 until he retired in 2001, and hopes to revitalize the pipeline by focusing more on generics and acquisitions. Currently, Biovail relies heavily on a generic Wellbutrin and its Cardizem heart drugs.

Since stepping down as a director and an officer of two key subsidiaries in February, Melnyk has repeatedly criticized the management, citing “unsatisfactory financial performance” and his “lack of confidence” in a recently announced strategic review for the dissident move. The review includes closing operations in Puerto Rico and a shift to treatments for central nervous systems disorders.

There was also the late April appointment of Bill Wells as ceo, a move that Melnyk has criticized for a costly compensation agreement if Wells leaves after a new slate of directors is elected at the annual meeting. “The company is not going to continue to be able to survive without a change in direction another 12 to 18 months,” Brydon tells Reuters.

“Management has proposed a long-term strategy so that they are able to hide their incompetency in the short-term results, and inevitably at some point they are going to have to say that their strategy does not work.”

A sore spot for Melnyk has been the disappointing performance of Biovail’s stock. From the time Doug Squires became chief executive on Oct. 7, 2004, to May 30, 2008, the shares plunged more than 45 percent on the Toronto Stock Exchange, compared with about a 30 percent drop for the index’s health-care sector over the same period. Squires was moved to chairman recently.

In releasing its own proxy last month, Biovail warned shareholders of the consequences of returning influence to Melnyk. “If Mr. Melnyk does act and nominates dissident directors, Biovail shareholders will be faced with a crucial choice,” the company said in a recent letter to shareholders.