He took over the worst team in the league and made some pretty good moves and won seven playoff series in seven years. Towards the end he made some bad ones, and one truly terrible one with Bryz.
That implies Holmgren inherited a bad situation, when it's completely the opposite. He inherited about as good of a situation as an incoming GM can possibly inherit. He had the luxury of coming in just as the team was set up beautifully.
I'm not saying didn't make some good moves, but by the end the system was gutted and the cap situation a disaster through horrible mismanagement.
Holmgren traded a 2nd and a 3rd for AMac, then signed him to a 6 year, $30M contract.
Holmgren signed Pronger to the 7-year over 35+ contract blunder that ate up cap space for years until Hextall was able to unload it.
Holmgren had to trade Simon Gagne for Matt Walker and a 4th because he had bungled the cap so badly. The sadder part was that Gagne only had one year left on his $5M contract, and Matt Walker had 3 more at $1.7M per.
Holmgren signed Ilya Bryzgalov to a 9 year contract at $5.67M per, after trading a 3rd rd. pick for his negotiating rights. (People blame it on Snider, but Holmgren is the one targeted Bryz and gave him that ludicrous contract; Snider just demanded he fix the goalie situation; Holmgren was the one who misevaluated Bryz). Thankfully, Holmgren got bailed out by the compliance buyout, or this would still be hurting the Flyers' cap.
Holmgren traded Bobrovsky for a 2nd and two 4ths.
Holmgren traded a 1st rd. pick (John Carlson) for Steve F'ing Eminger and a 3rd.
Holmgren signed Vinny Lecavalier at age 33, after TB bought him out, to a 5 year, $4.5M per contract. One NHL scout, after the signing, was quoted as asking if the Flyers had seen him play lately, and predicted he'd be the first NHLer to be bought out twice following the league's compliance buyouts. Thankfully, Hextall was eventually able to dump this albatross cap hit on LA.
Holmgren traded Upshall and a 2nd rd. pick for Dan Carcillo.
Holmgren traded JVR for Luke F'ing Schenn.
Holmgren signed Matt Read to a 4 year deal at $3.625M per.
Holmgren signed Randy Jones to a 2-year, $2.75M per extension, then waived him, then tried to recall him, and he got claimed and the Flyers ended up with $1.375M in dead cap space.
Holmgren traded the first pick in the 2nd rd. for a few weeks of Martin Biron, who they could have signed for free after the season.
He traded a first rd pick to negotiate with Timonen and Hartnell, who he still could have signed for free in a couple weeks.
Holmgren traded a 1st rd. pick and a 3rd rd. pick for Kris Versteeg.
He traded a 2nd and a 3rd for Nik Grossmann.
He traded a 2nd and a 4th for Pavel Kubina.
He signed Nik Grossmann to a 4 year, $3.5M extension.
He signed Max Talbot to a 5 year, $1.825M deal (to his credit, though, he at least was able to unload Talbot later, but the 5 year deal was ridiculous).