Because that's a reasonable assumption.
Nowhere did I say Davidson was untouchable, but he's played well for us and he's an actual late pick D that has worked out pretty well for us and while 3rd pairing is the reasonable place to slot him to start, he did legitimately play like a 2nd pairing guy for a decent chunk of this past season. It's normal to be concerned about losing a good player for potentially nothing.
There will be a rash of teams scrambling to get some value out of players they have to expose, if you can do something pre-emptively before **** hits the fan you should do so, cause there will be a ton of teams selling and it will be hard to get proper value.
My post didn't at all indicate protecting Davidson was something I was planning on doing, I said my initial plan was to add someone like Hamonic and then a PP guy e.g. Vatanen, but that would leave us with 4 d-men we have to protect (Klefbom, Sekera, Hamonic, Vatanen), with only 3 spots available to protect our guys, we would likely lose one to an expansion team.
While you can't be terrified of making moves for a what if scenario, but if we have to parlay for example 4th overall + Nurse in two seperate deals to get Hamonic + Vatanen & Quality prospect; and then have to expose one of Hamonic or Vatanen the very next off-season, when the 4th overall pick (whomever we draft) and Nurse are assets we don't have to protect in the expansion draft, that would be a colossal blunder. I agree with the premise of getting the highest quality RHD should be our priority, dropping futures for a strong balanced roster though is something the expansion draft has the potential to punish.
