The Toronto Maple Leafs need to trade for the player the Devils keep scratching

Brad Treliving, Brendan Shanahan and the rest of the Toronto Maple Leafs front-office need to stop what they are doing and focus 100% of their efforts on making a trade with the New Jersey Devils.

Though it may be somewhat ironic, after trading a player they healthy scratched for nine out of ten games, the Toronto Maple Leafs should trade for Simon Nemac, a defenseman that the New Jersey Devils have scratched for their last four games.

The Leafs don't have a single defenseman in their system worth being excited about, and the New Jersey Devils have too many.

The Leafs have an old blue-line, and they also have a blue-line that is mid-range at best and only going to get worse.

The best thing they could do is swing a blockbuster for a legitimate star defensman, but that would be extremely hard to do. A more realistic, easier move would be to trade for a young player with the chance to become that.

The Toronto Maple Leafs need to trade for Simon Nemec

At 6'1" 190, Nemec isn't exactly huge, and in fact he's about the same size as Timothy Lijegren, but he's not a small player. He is only 20 years old, shoots right, and is a former second-overall pick.

Nemec is the Devils top prospect, or at least one of them, and he's a very smooth, offensively gifted future superstar who is already an excellent defender. Extremely mobile, great at moving the puck and right handed - you can't go wrong.

Except for the fact that New Jersey already has a great blue-line with Dougie Hamilton and Luke Hughes, Brandon Dillon, Jonas Siegenthaler and Jonathan Kovacevic who seems to be breaking out. Additionally they just drafted 6'7 Russian defenseman Anton Silayev.

Hamilton remains one of the NHL's best defenseman, and Hughes and Silayev are two of the very best D prospects in the world so there may not be room to develop Nemac or enough minutes for him even if they could.

It would really seem that New Jersey has no room or need for Nemec, and that since the Leafs desperately need a player just like him, they should make a trade.

The Leafs could break him in slowly on the third pairing and eventually have him usurp Rielly as the team's best defenseman. Nemec doesn't project to be the next Cale Makar or anything, but he's miles better than anything the Leafs currently have in the system, and there just isn't another player like him out there whose team is overstocked at his position.

Obviously vultures will be circling New Jersey after the news that he was scratched again, but if the Leafs are smart they will make up for the botched asset managmeent of the Timothy Liljegren situation and get themselves the potential number-one defenseman that they are so desperate for.