BUFFALO, N.Y. - After all the pretty scoring chances Buffalo Sabres forward Jochen Hecht had, it was the ugly one that proved to be the difference.

Hecht jammed in a loose puck from in close with 20 seconds left in overtime, lifting Buffalo to a 3-2 victory over the Pittsburgh Penguins on Monday night.

"I just whacked it in and it trickled in over the line, barely," Hecht said. "Finally, something went in."

The goal came on Hecht's game-high seventh shot on net and after goaltender Marc-Andre Fleury had stopped 38 of the 40 shots he had faced.

Tim Connolly set it up when he put the puck on net from a bad angle from the right boards. Fleury used his skate to trap the puck against the post when Hecht took several jabs at it before it trickled in.

"Just to go in there and hack away at it is the key to that goal," coach Lindy Ruff said. "And we stayed with it. It was easy to get frustrated after missing the amount of chances we missed. ... Just keep grinding, keep working."

Defenseman Rory Fitzpatrick and rookie Paul Gaustad, with the first of his career, also scored for Buffalo, while Ryan Miller stopped 26 shots. The Sabres (3-1-0) have opened the season with three straight home wins for the first time since winning their first five in 1984-85.

But what's wrong with the talent-laden Penguins?

They are off to an 0-1-3 start, incapable of finding a clutch goal from a lineup that includes Mario Lemieux, John LeClair, Zigmund Palffy and rookie phenom Sidney Crosby.

The loss was Pittsburgh's third straight decided in a shootout or overtime, and comes after the Penguins squandered a two-goal lead in a 7-6 overtime loss to Boston on Saturday.

"It's disappointing," Lemieux said. "Any time you start a season, you want to start well. We've lost in overtime and in shootouts. It's just the way it's going."

Palffy and Mark Recchi both had a goal and an assist while Crosby, the overall No. 1 draft pick, had an assist, giving him a point (one goal, five assists) in each of the Penguins' four games.

"We're close," Crosby said. "We have to make sure we keep plugging. It's just a matter of getting that one more goal."

Fleury did everything he could to keep the Penguins in, stopping 16 of 17 shots in the second period alone.

Fleury, the first player selected in the 2003 draft, made his first start of the season, filling in after Jocelyn Thibault hurt his knee in practice on Saturday.