We aren’t giving you Asplund. Please stop

That's a hilarious spot to draw the line, and reminds me of the Rangers threads last year. Asplund is a complementary piece. Marino is a top 4 RD (what you need).

Not to mention they keep three 1st round picks and get Blueger, moving Girgensons into Aspulnds spot

Marino is a piece we need.
But buffalo is still a team that has a lot of needs.
That's filling a hole and making another.
It's very possible to make this deal without Asplund, and if not there are other D that fill that need without losing Asplund

Blueger would fill that hole with the ability of being a center. Girgensens would move to wing

Idk man Asplund is cost effective, young, and elite defensively. To me it would be silly to trade someone like that. I would rather negotiate another pick or different player to move

No offense, but Penguins fans said the same thing about Zach Aston-Reese too. I get you guys really like him, but that aside, this trade benefits both teams fairly as Blueger fills his spot, Marino is long term partner with Power, and Pens move salary and get picks

Or we can trade one of our firsts. We’re not trading Asplund. Sorry if it offends you

Two firsts?

Offends me? I couldn't give two shakes whether you do it or not, but it's a pretty clear example of fans overvaluing their players.

Not giving up a second round pick to move Faksa. You’ll honestly have a hard time convincing me he has negative value. I’m not expecting to get anything good for him as he is slightly overpaid and did not do well offensively under Bowness, but he’s still a big defensive center and any GM with cap space and quality bottom six wingers should be interested in seeing if he can get his offensive game back in a better system

Can I ask a question about Blueger? Why do Pens fans think he is a fit on the Sabres? I keep seeing "he signs an extension and forms a Latvian Checking Line w/Girgensons". If we already have Asplund-Girgensons-Okposo and that line worked well, why do we need Teddy Blueger. Wouldn't it make more sense to just simply negate Blueger and Asplund from the trade and instead do a trade strictly for Marino?

Can never have too many centers

I really like Asplund and there may be some serious latent offensive production in his game.
Some random thoughts:
Not only Latvia connection but a Riga, Latvia connection.
Blueger won 53.0% of his face offs.
Only 8 NHL players who played 60 or more games had a lower OZ% than his 29.3%.
He PK's 15% of his ice time and the Penguins had the third best PK 84.4% in the NHL last season.
Blueger's primary line mates were McGinn and Aston-Reese not a couple of players who would help Teddy get points for touching the puck every third time.
It would be difficult for me to imagine that Buffalo would get fewer points next season with Blueger and Marino on the team so the second would be worse than this years second.
The difference between 21st OA and 15th OA - 46th OA (I am guessing the Sabres move from 41st to 46th) is about 33rd OA.
Let's presume Asplund = Blueger and the difference in draft picks = Marino.
I think Blueger would make Sabre fans forget about Asplund and Marino would allow Dahlin to take more chances.
I would have the Penguins extend Teddy's contract before the trade, but IMO it would be hard to pass on this deal.
It addresses three areas for the Sabres, PK, FO% and RHD.

Losing Asplund obviously isn’t ideal
But gaining a partner for Power makes it worth it
And Bluger does fill the 4C role better than Asplund or Girgs

It would be great if they’d take Girgensons instead,
but u gotta give to get
And this is a completely reasonable trade- for both sides

❤️

My assumption there would be that PIT wants to get younger & a little cheaper

And for us, Blueger is a better “Center” than Girgs or Asplund
There’s a reason we kept playing them on the wing & putting Cody freaking Eakin out there at 4C

Also,
Blueger is MUCH better at faceoffs than either of them as well
Actually, he’s much better at faceoffs than anyone on our team

And I’m not being bias here, but Blueger has shown he can be a solid 3C. He was stuck with Boyle and ZAR a a lot this year, screwing up his offensive numbers. But years before, he’s shown he can put puck in net

Getting offense from him would be a bonus,
but not necessarily what we’re looking for

Considering the backlash from the Asplund lovers,
would u take him out of the deal for Girgensons?
I’d imagine we’d have to add another pick

Idk that PIT would do that though?
I’d guess it’s a “maybe” depending on if they actually like Girgensons or not

Girgensens lives in Cranberry in the offseason so he might work. At that point, we’d keep blueger and take Girgensens to form the Latvian checking line here. We’d throw McGinn in so he can fill that role for you guys in BUF. That work?

Don’t think we’d have interest in McGinn, he’s a winger

If we can’t get a good 4C from someone, we’ll just go with a checking line of Asplund-Girgensons-Okposo


*i don’t think having the Latvians together matters much to either team- fans tend to put more emphasis on that kind of stuff than i think most GMs care about

I’d love to move Carter lol

His NMC likely makes that pretty tough

Sadly. Hextall is an idiot

It’s not like he’s useless
19goals & 45pts are quite useful
Especially from a bottom6 forward