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Staal leads Penguins past Oilers

Jan 15, 2010 - 6:08 AM EDMONTON, Alberta(AP) -- The Pittsburgh Penguins only needed one good period to beat the struggling Edmonton Oilers.

Jordan Staal set up Pittsburgh's three third-period goals in the Penguins' 3-2 comeback victory Thursday night.

Tyler Kennedy started the Penguins' rally with a goal at 3:18 of the third, Matt Cooke tied it at 6:48 and Pascal Dupuis scored the winner with 9:30 left.

"The first two periods, we obviously didn't come out with our best effort," Staal said. "We shook it off and said we have to change it in the third. And we did. It's not a good thing to have to come back like that. We have to work on being a team that comes out strong every time and we haven't been doing that of late and it has been catching up to us. We can't do this every night."

Coming off a 3-1 victory in Calgary on Wednesday night, the Penguins improved to 3-1 on their five-game trip.

"This is not an easy trip," Penguins captain Sidney Crosby said. "We are playing some very good teams here. I think getting on the road has hopefully simplified some things for us. A lot of times you get on a trip like this and it helps you regroup. Hopefully this is something we can build off of."

Andrew Cogliano and Lubomir Visnovsky scored for Edmonton. The Oilers have lost six straight and have won just once in their last 14 games.

"We do some stuff that I like a lot," Oilers coach Pat Quinn said. "We have played very well against good teams this year and then find a way to disappoint ourselves. That was tough because I thought our team played well and maybe deserved a different result. But we have to quit beating ourselves before we learn to win hockey games."

Edmonton started the scoring on a two-man advantage 1:34 into the second. Patrick O'Sullivan made a nice feed to Cogliano, who stuffed in his own rebound after Marc-Andre Fleury made a terrific kick save on the first attempt.

The Oilers made it 2-0 with another power-play goal with 8 minutes left when Sullivan fed Visnovsky at the point and he blew a hard shot past Fleury.

Pittsburgh finally broke Devan Dubnyk's shutout bid early in the third on Kennedy's shot from the middle of the faceoff circle.

The Penguins tied it on Cooke's power-play goal. Dubnyk was able to stop the initial shot by Staal, but couldn't recover in time to get in front of a backhanded rebound shot by Cooke.

Pittsburgh then took the lead as Staal took a shot from behind the net that banked off of the skate of Dupuis and in. Fleury finished with 33 saves.

NOTES: It was the only meeting between the two teams this season. ... Edmonton goalie Nikolai Khabibulin underwent back surgery in Los Angeles on Thursday and is out for 12 weeks. ... Penguins defenseman Brooks Orpik remained out due to an undisclosed injury. ... The Olympic flame made its way into Rexall Place for a special pregame ceremony on its way to Vancouver for the Olympics.