And just like that, the rental trade market has thinned out considerably.

On Tuesday, the trade for Sean Bergenheim helped set the price for a rental, with the Florida Panthers getting a third-round pick while shipping a seventh-rounder to the Minnesota Wild along with the forward, who had asked out.

The other general managers took that bit of information on Wednesday and ran with it.

“I think the Bergenheim price motivated some sellers to take what they can get. That was not a great price if you’re a seller,” one Eastern Conference executive said. “The value -- I don’t think it was anywhere near what people were saying the market was going to be.”

That said, the price the Pittsburgh Penguins paid for Daniel Winnik was high, in part because he was one of the few rentals they could squeeze under the cap. And the Los Angeles Kings paid a nice ransom for Andrej Sekera, but get the double benefit of adding the best available rental defenseman and preventing him from going to Chicago.

In a span of two days, Bergenheim, Winnik, Sekera and Jiri Tlusty were removed from a market that also no longer contained Cody Franson and Mike Santorelli.

There are still useful options out there, but it moves the spotlight to the "hockey trade" market. This is the market in which contenders vie for a player who has more term on his deal.