yeah, i bet you do. That's why the leafs traded him to you in the first place

What would have to be changed for Toronto to accept it?

Zaitsev is not worse than Holl IMO and Ritchie is a pylon.

Zaitsev is very much worse than Holl, and more expensive and signed longer. There isnt anything shy of throwing enough good players and high picks at the leafs to make the buy out worth it that would get them to take Zaitsev back.

yeah, zaitsev is 100000x worse than holl. He wouldnt make the marlies

If Toronto offered this, Ottawa should say "Thank you, Come again."

Maybe that's true but the reason you are trying to dump Zaitsev on the Leafs is because he's awful. There's no chance Dubas would take him back. The moment his name came up Dubas would hang up the phone.

Holl isn't much better though, if at all.

yeah, keep convincing yourself zaitsev is any good

He's not a good player, but he's not a cancer to the team as a lot of people think. With the right partner he's average defensively. Holl is a similar player right now, used to be good defensively, but now isn't and was never good offensively. If you think Holl is night and day better than Zaitsev you're just wrong.

Let's say that's even close to being true. Why the hell would the Leafs take Zaitsev out of the goodness of their heart and pay him until 23-24?