Thirty-four American Hockey League alumni were in the lineup for the AMP Energy NHL Winter Classic in Buffalo on New Year’s Day, the first regular-season outdoor NHL game ever played in the United States.
The Pittsburgh Penguins defeated the Buffalo Sabres, 2-1 in a shootout, at Ralph Wilson Stadium in Orchard Park, N.Y.
The game rosters featured 16 Penguins and 18 Sabres who have played in the AHL in their careers, including four Pittsburgh players who have skated for the Wilkes-Barre/Scranton Penguins during the 2007-08 season: Tyler Kennedy, Jeff Taffe, Kristopher Letang and winning goaltender Ty Conklin.
The AMP Energy NHL Winter Classic marked the second regular-season outdoor game in NHL history. Attendance was 71,217, surpassing the NHL single-game record set at the League’s first outdoor regular-season contest, when 57,167 filled Edmonton’s Commonwealth Stadium to see the Montreal Canadiens defeat the Edmonton Oilers 4-3 in 2003.
| AHL alumni in the AMP Energy Winter Classic | |
| Pittsburgh | Buffalo |
| Rob Scuderi | Jaroslav Spacek |
| Ryan Malone | Derek Roy |
| Erik Christensen | Henrik Tallinder |
| Petr Sykora | Ales Kotalik |
| Adam Hall | Daniel Paille |
| Ryan Whitney | Adam Mair |
| Colby Armstrong | Thomas Vanek |
| Georges Laraque | Paul Gaustad |
| Jarkko Ruutu | Jason Pominville |
| Jeff Taffe | Michael Ryan |
| Brooks Orpik | Nathan Paetsch |
| Tyler Kennedy | Dmitri Kalinin |
| Sergei Gonchar | Brian Campbell |
| Kristopher Letang | Jochen Hecht |
| Ty Conklin | Maxim Afinogenov |
| Dany Sabourin | Andrew Peters |
| Ryan Miller | |
| Jocelyn Thibault | |
