I tried your script and it worked fine for me, i.e. it created the sftp object and I was able to retrieve a file. Try adding: 
my $sftp = $ssh->sftp() or die "Can't create sftp: " . $ssh->error;

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In reply to Re: How to connect to SFTP via OpenSSH by tangent
in thread How to connect to SFTP via OpenSSH by Logic_Bomb421

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