CALGARY, Alberta -- The Penguins didn't have much choice. Changes had to be made on the power play.

They weren't major moves last night -- a tweak in personnel, a little less tension -- but they brought some relief on a night when several things clicked in a 3-1 win over the Calgary Flames at the Pengrowth Saddledome.

"How many power plays did we have -- four or five?" winger Bill Guerin asked. It was the latter. "All of them were good. We just needed to relax and play and not worry about too many details out there."

Guerin scored the winner in the second period on one of those power plays, Sidney Crosby opened the scoring with a slick individual effort, goaltender Marc-Andre Fleury had a strong game with 37 save and Tyler Kennedy scored an insurance goal as the Penguins improved to 2-1 on their five-game road trip.

"It was nice to get rewarded for really working hard," Crosby said. "We really had to stick with that one all the way through."

Crosby opened the scoring at 3:52 of the first period. Moving down the right side of the Calgary zone, he split the defense pairing of Jay Bouwmeester and Mark Giordano as he cut through the circle and toward the net, moved across the front of the crease and lifted the puck past the blocker of Flames goaltender Miikka Kiprusoff.

Crosby wasn't sure how the puck got lifted.

"Just kind of our sticks coming together and it ended up popping up and going into the corner," Crosby said.

It was his 30th goal.

Penguins coach Dan Bylsma said his team is far from immune to getting a spark from Crosby's highlight-reel moves, especially when they result in a game-opening goal.

"You don't get sick of seeing them, I know that," Bylsma said. "We want to be a team that goes north with speed and aggressiveness. You and I could do that and it's not going to look very spectacular."

Calgary tied it at 9:39 of the second period when Mark Giordano scored on power play. He took a feed from Nigel Dawes, right dot to left dot, for a perfect back-door play and shot the puck under Fleury.

The Penguins answered with Guerin's power-play goal at 10:52 of the second period. He deflected in a center-point shot from Sergei Gonchar with Crosby screening Kiprusoff to make it 2-1. Goligoski got the other assist.

Goligoski, who had spent time on the top unit of the power play earlier this season, returned to that spot last night. That moved Evgeni Malkin, a center, off of that point over along the right wall. Crosby and Guerin remained the other forwards, with defenseman and power-play quarterback Gonchar manning his usual right point position.

"We're moving around and trying new things, going to different spots," Goligoski said. "The idea is to try to just let the skill take over."

Goligoski and Gonchar earlier in the day had pondered why the Penguins entered the game ranked 29th out of 30 NHL teams on the power play. They had been 2 for 27 over their previous eight games.

"It's kind of an embarrassment of riches with Sid and Geno and [Gonchar]," Goligoski said.

Gonchar stifled a laugh at the months the power play has been an issue, but he liked the change.

"It's just giving us a different look," he said. "The power play has not been working, so you have to change things. It's one of the things we're trying."

The timing of the Penguins' power-play goal was significant, too, coming 1:13 after Calgary tied the score with a power-play goal.

"That was the biggest thing -- that we got it right back," Goligoski said. "They had the momentum, a really good power play there. We buried one right back."

Kennedy added an insurance goal for the Penguins on a backhander at 18:20 of the third period, and Fleury held firm.

Perhaps his biggest save came in the first minute of the third period when Calgary's Nigel Dawes, just out of the penalty box, got a breakaway. Fleury gloved his shot to preserve the Penguins' one-goal lead.

"A lot of good things," Bylmsa said. "We've got to get what we can and move on."

The Penguins continue their road trip tonight at Edmonton before playing Saturday at Vancouver.

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