Newsday: When training camp opens Friday, centers Mike Comrie and Josef Vasicek will get a shot to anchor the top two lines, wingers Ruslan Fedotenko and Jonathan Sim will audition for prominent roles on those lines, and top defensive free agent Andy Sutton will step into a job that calls for him to get major minutes as a crease-clearing force in front of goaltender Rick DiPietro.

National Post: After two years of dressing up Nik Antropov and Alexei Ponikarovsky as first-line wingers, Mats Sundin will inherit a legitimate 40-goal scorer in free-agent acquisition Jason Blake.
The question is whether the two will actually gel. With an average weight of 227 pounds, Antropov (six-foot-six), Sundin (six-foot-five) and Ponikarovsky (six-foot-four) were a nightmare to defend against in the offensive zone, and the two wingers enjoyed career-best seasons, even if the Leafs captain did not.
Blake, by comparison, is tiny. And like Sundin, the five-foot-10 forward likes to fire the puck rather than pass it. Last season Blake tied for ninth in the NHL with 305 shots, while Sundin finished seventh with 321.

Buffalo Sabres: Tickets for the 2008 Winter Classic are now soldout.
Approximately 41,000 seats were sold in less than 30 minutes. The remaining seats are being held for Sabres Season Ticket Holders, Bills Club seat holders and the NHL, as well as Buffalo and Pittsburgh players. Nearly 7,000 seats at the lowest possible levels are obstructed due to television cameras for NBC's broadcast.
The Buffalo Sabres and Pittsburgh Penguins will make National Hockey League history on New Year’s Day, 2008, when they play in the AMP NHL Winter Classic, the League’s first regular-season outdoor game in the United States.

National Post: Trukhno scored first at 15:22 of the opening period, but the Leafs best line of the night answered on the power play when Darcy Tucker found a streaking Alexei Ponikarovsky. Ponikarovsky's backhand deke left Garon helpless and forged a 1-1 tie that would stand up through 40 minutes.
Garon gets credit for the best save of the night, when he did the splits to rob Tucker late in the second period, on an excellent feed from Ponikarovsky. Centred by Kyle Wellwood, that line was the Leafs most dangerous on the precious few even-strength shifts that could be found last night.