Dustin Penner may be a long way from the days when he was considered one of the NHL's next top power forwards, but now that he's back with the Anaheim Ducks, he seems right at home.
Penner is recapturing the chemistry with Corey Perry and Ryan Getzlaf that made him a force in the first place. He signed a one-year deal with Anaheim for $2 million in the off-season - a sum that looks like a major bargain thanks to his 21 points in 22 games thus far. Penner has nine goals with the Ducks, matching his total over 98 games with the Kings in the previous two campaigns.
It was a concerning sign when Penner was a healthy scratch in the season-opener for conditioning reasons given his history - and even more concerning when he missed six games due to a concussion - but the 31-year-old has proven he has the drive to compete on Anaheim's top scoring line.
"I'm getting there, playing better personally. Anybody who plays with them is set up for success," Penner told the Los Angeles Times in November. "I'm trying to add elements to my game that maybe weren't there before."
Ducks coach Bruce Boudreau has praised Penner for being "in good shape" and believes his conditioning and confidence are the biggest reason for his turnaround. Playing with Perry and Getzlaf doesn't hurt, either.
"Obviously, being paired with [Perry] and Getzlaf, the way we read off of each other … we're opportunistic," Penner said after scoring a pair of goals Friday against the Flames. He is on a four-game point streak and has eight in his last six contests.
Penner is scoring on a career-best 17.6 percent of his shots and has a PDO of 108.9, which suggests his season is somewhat unsustainable. Still, Penner is on pace for a career year in assists and plus/minus, reflecting the more complete, two-way game he is playing in his second stint with the Ducks.
Penner was a hot commodity as a restricted free agent following Anaheim's 2007 Stanley Cup victory, when he recorded 29 goals and 45 points in his first full season and added eight points in the playoffs. The Edmonton Oilers signed Penner to an offer sheet for a five-year deal worth more than $20 million, swiping him from the Ducks and prompting then-Anaheim general manager Brian Burke to challenge then-Oilers general manager Kevin Lowe to a fight in a barn.
Penner never lived up to the promise of his contract during his time with Edmonton, dogged by questions about conditioning as his scoring declined to just 17 goals and 37 points in 2008-09. He rebounded with a career-best 63-point performance the next season but had worn out his welcome with the Oilers and was traded at the 2011 trade deadline to the Los Angeles Kings, where his inconsistencies continued.
The most infamous part of Penner's tenure with Los Angeles occurred in January 2012, when he was forced to miss a game after throwing out his back eating pancakes. Not even a Stanley Cup victory could help Penner escape the punchline he had become with the Kings and he was often a healthy scratch during the next lockout-shortened season, scoring just two goals in 33 games.
Kings general manager Dean Lombardi said Penner was "at the crossroads of his career" with Los Angeles. "He can choose to use his athletic ability to either become a dominant power forward in the National Hockey League or be a dominant number four hitter for the El Cid Lounge in a men’s softball league," Lombardi wrote in an email to Sporting News in 2011. Two years later, Penner appears to have finally found his path.
