If the New Jersey Devils were going to trade Simon Nemec for anything, it was going to be a young forward who could meaningfully improve the team.
That never came to fruition ahead of Friday's 3 p.m. NHL trade deadline, of course, but NHL insider Elliotte Friedman had his own trade idea for Nemec and the Devils that actually makes perfect sense, both for now and in the future.
"I'll say this: with the whole Matthew Knies thing, one of the guys I wondered about was Nemec. Now, I don't think Nemec for Knies, one-for-one makes any sense for Toronto, but I do think that's the kind of thing those two teams would've talked about," Friedman said in his latest "32 Thoughts" episode.