To be fair to Tallon, he has to meet the salary floor somehow. Very few want to play for that team if they're not going to be paid a premium to do so.
Granted, stuff like the Bolland signing is indefensible and I have plenty of complaints against Tallon (some of which you lined up in the next post).
He messed up a whole crop of RFAs by failing to submit his Qualifying Offers in time. Kris Versteeg, Cam Barker, Ben Eager, Colin Fraser, Aaron Johnson and Troy Brouwer were all involved. The team ended up signing them all before the matter was settled, but likely had to pay more because of it, and you're right that the extra cost incurred there likely contributed to some of the salary dumps following the Cup win.
Flash isn't really a bad deal for $4.5M. That was the same off-season that Ville Leino and Brooks Laich landed $4.5M deals.