People undersell the constraints he had in Carolina ... he built a cup team there with a hand tied behind his back.. he had no real ability to spend what he needed to do anything after that
Not true at all. He moved heaven and earth to trade for Jordan Staal and then signed him to a $6 million/yr contract. He signed Alex Semin to a 7 million/year contract. He traded Ladd on his rookie deal for Tuomo Ruutu and then signed him for big money. Same for Pitkanen and Gleason. He brought back Erik Cole from Edmontona and then re-signed him.
He made bad moves. He drafted poorly for damn near a decade.* He overcommitted to some players who were old and injury-prone, he put faith in guys who didn't have a long enough track record to justify it. Some of that is probably due to the fact that Carolina has never been a free agent destination and he had to work with what he could get personnel-wise.
From 1997 to 2002, the following were his draft hits: Erik Cole, Shane Willis, Josef Vasicek, Niclas Wallin, Cam Ward. And I'm giving Willis the benefit of the doubt, assuming he would've built on his promise had Scott Stevens had nearly killed him with that open ice hit. Seriously, look at the Hurricanes draft history:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Carolina_Hurricanes_draft_picks
It's horrific up until 2010 when he somehow hit on Faulk and Skinner the same year. Francis took over the draft after that.