After nearly two weeks of jetting from sea to shining sea, the last thing the Buffalo Sabres needed Wednesday night in HSBC Arena was overtime. Or a shootout.

But the groggy Sabres weren't in the fog you might expect after their seven-game road trip.

They still found some jump in their step. They got a boost from the 2010 debuts of Andrej

Sekera and Nathan Paetsch. And, of course, they have Ryan Miller.

Miller made 39 saves in 65 minutes, then stopped both New Jersey attempts in the shootout

to outduel upcoming Olympic rival Martin Brodeur and lead the Sabres to a 2-1 victory over the

New Jersey Devils.

The Sabres had dropped five straight shootouts and Miller had lost three of them. On the

road trip at the New York Islanders and Los Angeles, he had been burned for six goals on 11

shots.

Not this time. Miller stoned Zach Parise on a deke and Jamie Langenbrunner on a shot.

Meanwhile, Jochen Hecht eluded Brodeur's poke-check for one goal and Jason Pominville's snap

shot gave Buffalo a decisive 2-0 advantage.

"I'm just happy to come through in a shootout," Miller said. "I've been trying to work on

it a little bit and get reset. I've let a few points slip away."

Hecht improved to 3 for 3 in shootouts this season, best on the team, by cutting around

Brodeur to the goalie's right and slipping the puck into the vacated cage.

"I saw him early enough to get out of the way," Hecht said. "And then it's an empty net."

A crowd of 18,690 saw the Sabres climb out of the 0-3-1 rut that ended their road trip and

pull within a point of New Jersey for second place in the Eastern Conference. The Sabres are

8-0-3 in their last 11 home games.

"It was big," said coach Lindy Ruff. "We had talked about the points we'd given up. To stop

it where we stopped it ... that extra point is very important."

Sabres center Tim Connolly was held pointless, ending his NHL-leading point streak at 16

games and falling two shy of the franchise record set by Gilbert Perreault.

The Devils had a 40-31 advantage in shots on goal in a game that featured only bursts of

energy from two tired teams. While Buffalo was bouncing off its trip, the Devils were enduring

a 3-0 loss Tuesday in Ottawa.

Still, this game was easy to circle as a major trap on the Sabres' schedule and they didn't

fall into it.

"A lot of us felt it out there with the time change and the traveling, but I thought we

played our system really well," Pominville said. "You've got arguably the two best goalies in

the world going at it. We knew there wouldn't be a lot of goals but we were patient and won in

a shootout, which was huge."

The Sabres made their biggest lineup shift of the season for this one as Ruff scratched

defensemen Steve Montador and Toni Lydman, as well as winger Clarke MacArthur. Paetsch and

Sekera both went in for the first time since a few days after Christmas.

"We put in all the fresh bodies we had," Ruff said. "It wasn't easy taking out the two

[defensemen] we took out. ... I just felt it was the right time to do it."

Sekera and Paetsch promptly combined to help Adam Mair open the scoring at 14:14 of the

first period by deflecting home Derek Roy's slap shot.

Sekera used a nifty spin move at the blue line to elude Vladimir Zharkov and fed the puck

to Paetsch at the left boards. He found Roy with a quick pass to the slot.

"[Sekera] made a great play when he dipsy-doodled at the blue line and gave me a little

time," Paetsch said. "Their guy came on me and I put it through his legs."

The Devils finally tied it on Brian Rolston's slap shot at 14:51 of the second. But that

was the only time they beat Miller.