If you listened Murray's latest on WGR, you noticed how he emphasized having depth (and it wasn't the first time he has done that).
If you want to create depth, you need to avoid giving bad contracts AND you need to squeeze as much as possible out of RFA years. The problem is not that we're not able to sign Jack/Sam. The problem is, that if we just sign them whatever they ever want, without using the leverage of RFA years, we are really soon under the situation where we have no cap space for depth.
If we give Ekblad money to Risto, for example, there is absolutely no way of asking Eichel/Reinhart to accept something other than top money. But if you get at least one big gun under at least somehow team friendly contract, you will have easier time getting the others. Just like Yzerman had Hedman after Stamkos.
And regarding Risto's RFA years, yes, he has 5 RFA years left (his first year didn't count as an accrued season).