Its not young guys asking for a lot of money - What you are talking about it a common bargaining tool.
The issue with the game is that if you play deep into a 25 year Franchise, you start to see playing getting paid 17 million for 1st Line Players, then the 2nd line players want 12 million and the 3rd line players are asking for 7 million. It becomes impossible to actually keep a team functioning that way.
Example, I had a Top 6 F ranked at 86 at 28 years old - He had 50 points in 82 games (and a couple injuries) He was me 12th best player, but fit the Line Chemistry perfectly. He wanted 14 million for three years. My 95, 22 year old Franchise player only wanted 5 million for 4 years, and my 38 year old Top 4 D who had a 78 overall wanted 11.2 million.
Some players don't make sense in the contract they ask for, and others ask for obscene contracts and your can't negotiate, or offer rolling increases, or anything like that. When you start off with 80 million and by year five you hit 100 million in cap, and the slalries dont' adjust you start to price out players. I made it so season 23 once, and had my AHL level players (70 to 74) on my 3rd, and 4th Lines as well as my 3rd Pair in order to afford my starting line. About 20 players with 85+ overall, stayed on the Free Agency List as they wanted 18+ million dollar contracts.