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Dustin Penner just can’t catch a break

Dustin Penner LA Kings

Dustin Penner is the Charlie Brown of Los Angeles. In a city filled with sunshine, there’s always a rain cloud hanging over his head.

Case in point: Helene Elliott of the L.A. Times just tweeted a scoring change that took away one of Penner’s two assists in Tuesday’s 4-3 win over Nashville. Penner got the first assist on Simon Gagne’s game-winning goal and was originally credited with the second assist on Mike Richard’s marker. But the Richards assist has since been awarded to Kings D Willie Mitchell -- leaving Penner with one point on the night, not two.

And as Elliott notes: "[This] means Penner did not have first multi-point game as a King. Tonight will be his 33rd game with Kings.”

Granted, this a pretty small issue. Insignificant even. If you were to ask Penner about it, he’d likely reply with “We got the two points, so I’m okay with getting just one,” or some less-clever banality (mine was rather clever.) Players are supposed to give the impression they’re not concerned about individual statistics, even if they are.

But this isn’t so much about numbers -- it’s about breaks, and how Penner can’t catch one. The good almost always involves some kind of bad.

I mean, consider what Kings GM Dean Lombari said about him earlier this week. He praised Penner for working hard, getting chances and making an effort...by saying this:

“Hey, you’ve just got to keep working through it. This is a guy who has done it before. We’ve got to find a way to get it out of him,” Lombardi told Rich Hammond of LA Kings Insider. “The one thing, to his credit, he’s not in elite shape but he certainly made the effort to get in average shape.”

Nice compliment. Ivan Lendl thinks that was a solid backhand.