Of course it's possible to have big contracts. It's simple math, in fact. Instead of 2 players on ~$4.5M contracts, you replace them with 2 players, 1 on a $8M contract and one on an ELC at < $1M.
The trade off is whether that one $8M guy is enough of a positive bump and the kid isn't that big of a drag over the average Joes to tilt the scales one way or the other.
Our roster was initially assembled with wall-to-wall average Joe contracts. It was a given with how the expansion draft was handled. But as time goes on, one would hope we acquire elite talent—either through the draft or some other way. And that talent will have to be paid market prices or the Kraken will be a perpetual farm team, developing players to be stars and paid elsewhere.