Penner settles in, gets new linemate

As mentioned earlier, the Kings swapped right wingers during last night’s game — moving Justin Williams to the first line and Wayne Simmonds to the second line — and are expected to stay with that look when they play Vancouver tomorrow. Williams tied for the team high with three shots on goal last night, but after practice today, Terry Murray indicated that the swap was more about Simmonds…

MURRAY: “As the game went along — and as I mentioned to Simmer — I don’t want to put him a bad light here, but I just thought he stopped moving his feet. Simmer is a heck of a player when he’s playing with that `power forward’ attitude, with moving, getting pucks deep, grinding, dot-to-board game. There were several times during the game, as we got into the middle part of it, when he starts to glide. Once that starts to happen, then you’re taking your strength away from yourself. You glide, you look to make plays, and now pucks get turned over and you don’t continue with the play that was there whenever you were skating. So I made the change for that reason.”

The move means that Dustin Penner will have a different look in his second line with the Kings, as Penner will play on the line with Anze Kopitar and Williams. Penner made his Kings debut last night against Phoenix and didn’t record a shot on goal but did have a team-high five hits in 16 minutes, 45 seconds, of ice time.

MURRAY: “He has gone through a very busy time here, with the move and the trade, a new system and style. I thought, overall, his game was good. When it comes to the structure that we want to play with, I was actually very pleased. I was surprised that he executed as well as he did, because of all the information that was fed to him in two days. He made some plays. He’s very strong. He got some bumps in there, on the forecheck, and he had a nice net presence on the winning goal. So he gets a pretty good grade for his first game.”