Maple Leafs, Avalanche Set Market for Rental Players in Shawn Matthias Trade

The 2015-16 season has been a slow one in terms of player trades, which poses a unique problem for the NHL’s 30 teams as the league’s February 29 trade deadline approaches.

What is the market value for rental players when there aren’t any deals to use as a point of comparison?

The Toronto Maple Leafs and Colorado Avalanche made the picture a little clearer on Sunday when they connected on a trade which sent pending free agent Shawn Matthias from the Leafs to the Avs in exchange for a prospect and a draft pick.

It’s an interesting trade in its own right, but also because it’s our first real look at the rental market.

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Matthias is a 28-year-old veteran of nearly 500 games with Florida, Vancouver and Toronto. He’s commonly listed as a centre and has spent time in the middle but is a better fit at left wing. He has played there pretty much exclusively this season.

As a player, Matthias brings size (6’4”, 231 lbs) and a responsible two-way game. He generally scores at a decent third-line clip, coming in somewhere between 20 and 30 points and at about 1.5 points/hour at even strength. He’s not overly physical and has a history of relatively unremarkable underlying metrics.

Beyond that, he can fill in at the faceoff circle and has some value as a penalty-killer, neither of which is a terribly uncommon trait for a third-line forward. 

Matthias is a little bigger and better at scoring than the average third-liner, but other than that, he's a fairly typical representative of that class of player.

In exchange, Colorado sent two pieces to the Leafs: the fourth-round pick and prospect Colin Smith.

The draft pick, which will probably fall somewhere between No. 100 and No. 110 overall, is easy enough to assess. TSN’s Scott Cullen found that picks in that range had roughly a 20 percent chance of producing a player who appeared in 100 career NHL games.

If the pick pans out, Toronto will get the rights to a cost-controlled young player for most of a decade, but the majority of selections in this range don’t.

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Smith was a seventh-round pick in the 2012 draft after going unselected in 2011. Red Line Report characterized the then-5’10”, 172-pound forward as “slightly built” but with “very good speed and vision.” He would go on to top 100 points in the WHL in 2012-13.

Over three AHL campaigns, Smith has taken modest strides as a scorer. He had a career-high 13 goals and 34 points through 54 AHL games at the time of the trade.

Both his waiver exemption and entry-level contract will expire this summer, and it seems likely that Toronto will choose not to qualify him.

Smith has some value to the Leafs’ farm team, but at this point, he’s a long shot to play in the NHL and doesn’t add much to this trade from a value perspective. In all likelihood, he was included so as to prevent the Avalanche, who already have 50 players under contract, from exceeding the NHL’s 50-contract limit.

Put it all together, and we have what Colorado and Toronto believe represents fair value at this deadline, with a fourth-round pick being roughly equivalent to a few months of service from a slightly above-average third-line winger.

That's probably good news for teams looking to bring on some talent at the deadline.

Clubs looking to add a bottom-six forward or No. 5-7 defenceman probably won't have to pay more than a middling pick to get the insurance they want.

The news is less good for sellers, though we may see prices shoot up higher than this trade would suggest for the handful of really talented players available.

Statistics courtesy of NHL.com and Stats.HockeyAnalysis.com. Salary information via General Fanager.

Jonathan Willis covers the NHL for Bleacher Report. Follow him on Twitter for more of his work.