Lou drove the franchise into the ground. Oldest team in the league, best prospect at the time was Boucher, no top line talent in the pipeline. Yes he did get some picks with trades like the Jagr trade but it was Shero who had to pull Palms and Hall out of a hat and lucked out with getting Nico. Without Nico this franchise would be years behind where they are now. So no Lou did not leave this team in a good spot.There was only 1 bad contract remaining when Shero took over and that was Cammalleri...and how bad the Cammalleri contract was is debatable...he did score 111 points in 171 games including 51 goals.
Lou got rid of most of the bad contracts and/or they expired before Shero took over. Lou also left a ton of picks when he left .
Lots of history rewriting going on up in here.
And lol at the poster above talking about Lou and the Isles. Lou went to the Maple Leafs when they were trending up, Lou went to the Isles where there was a foundation. Shero came here with no foundation on a downward trend.