Murray wants consistency from Penner

Five of the Kings’ top six forwards have had their moments early this season. The first line of Anze Kopitar, Simon Gagne and Justin Williams got off to a strong start. Mike Richards has been a force on the power play. Dustin Brown had a two-point game against St. Louis. Then there’s Dustin Penner, who has zero goals and one assist in six games. Penner’s start has been a tough one, given that he missed a part of training camp with an injury then was also slowed for a while by a bruised knee. After practice today, Terry Murray met with Penner in his office, then shared his thoughts on Penner’s recent play…

MURRAY: “His game has been good in some games. I thought his game against Dallas, two games ago at home, was his best game of the year. He was skating well. He was pretty responsible on the checking side of it. He did use his size. He had some scoring opportunities. The game last night was a little bit of a drop-off. The conversation that we just had was about that. The whole concept with him right now, for me, is to keep working hard with the intensity, get that game to a higher consistent level and, when you do that, I think good things will happen on the offensive part of the game.’’