PITTSBURGH — At least Pittsburgh doesn’t have to worry about facing Buffalo in the playoffs. At the moment, the Sabres are the one team in the Eastern Conference that has found a way to beat the Penguins at home.

Thomas Vanek scored twice, Ryan Miller stopped 40 shots and Buffalo edged Pittsburgh 4-2 on Tuesday night for its second win at Consol Energy Center in as many visits.

Steve Ott gave the Sabres the lead for good when he batted a rebound out of the air past Penguins goalie Marc-Andre Fleury with 2:34 left and Vanek added an empty-netter in the final minute.

Jochen Hecht also scored for the Sabres, who never trailed while snapping the Penguins’ seven-game winning streak. Pittsburgh has still won 22 of its last 25 games, but two of the losses have come to Buffalo, which is already out of postseason contention.

“Obviously we wanted to be in the playoffs, but that’s not going to happen but guys want to make sure they finish strong,” Buffalo coach Ron Rolston said. “Tonight was a good step in that direction.”

Chris Kunitz scored his 22nd goal for Pittsburgh and Jarome Iginla scored in his fourth straight game but it wasn’t enough. Fleury made 29 saves but failed to pick up his 23rd win.

The Penguins have already clinched the top seed in the East when the Stanley Cup playoffs begin next week and are in the process of getting healthy. The results against the Sabres were mixed at best.

Pittsburgh center Evgeni Malkin assisted on Iginla’s goal to pick up a point in his return after missing four games with a lingering shoulder injury but defenseman Brooks Orpik left after the first period with a lower-body injury.

Orpik will be re-evaluated on Wednesday, not exactly great news for a team already captain Sidney Crosby (broken jaw) and forward James Neal (concussion) along with defenseman Paul Martin (hand injury).

“We’ve been pretty physical lately and we’ve been skating well and I don’t think we did that quite as much,” Iginla said.