We had to over-pay for a while and add enough incentive to draw UFAs. One of the whining points of the negative "fans" (not referring to you) is/was that we were the worst team over a certain period of the re-whatchamacallit. People seem to forget that we needed to draw UFAs here and other GMs were trying to low-ball Benning for a lot of our players. Now players want to come here but people forget that these "anchor" contracts are what helped to build us to where we are now.
Also, I'd rather have Reaves-like players punching and abusing Roussel than our stars. They do get hits in on our players, but spend a lot of their energy trying to "get" Roussel who knows how to aggravate them enough to draw their attention whenever they are on the ice. That is not a glamorous role and is under-appreciated.