Why is trading him for value not an option?
It's just like an impossible notion to people for some reason. Because people think he has too long of term (which ends when he is 32, but apparently Zaitsev is going to be one of those rare cases who starts to suck in his late 20's...) and he makes too much money/term, even though teams would probably end up paying him more if he hit UFA.
Look at what guys like De Haan, Alzner, etc. were getting in UFA as LD. De Haan came off of a major injury too, and it was not his first. Look at what Stralman is probably going to get in UFA this year at 32. De Haan's deal ends at 31, but Alzner's goes until he is 33/34 and is far more likely to fall apart early than Zaitsev (in fact, he's already fallen apart), and Stralman is already the age that Zaitsev would be when he would be a UFA, and there's a good chance he could make north of 5 mill this year on a 4 or 5 year type deal, even though he's not even playing that amazing and has been injured.
And if you want to look at the UFA market for defense this year... It is not pretty.
RD Erik Karlsson
RD Tyler Myers
LD Jake Gardiner
LD Alex Edler
LD Zdeno Chara
LD Marc Methot
RD Anton Stralman
RD Nick Jensen
LD Jay Bouwmeester
RD Ron Hainsey
Everyone else would not even be top 4 defensemen on bad teams, and even the last two or three are stretching it. Now consider this, everyone except Karlsson, Myers, Gardiner and Jensen are older now than Zaitsev would be when his deal ends. Some of those guys are going to re-sign with their old teams (i.e. Chara). Others like Karlsson, Jensen, and Edler have been reported to be wanted by their current teams right now too. Teams want top 4 defensemen all of the time, will not have a great crop to choose from, and will have to pay that crop 1+ mill more than they would need to pay Zaitsev... And we have to pay other teams to take on Zaitsev?
Sorry, but that does not make sense to me. Teams can call us to pay us to take Zaitsev off of our hands, and they'll need to come with a lot more than the paltry packages thrown around on HFBoards. Because if Dubas has half a brain-cell, which I think he does, I think he realizes that Zaitsev is a better option than most of his UFA/trade alternatives.