Who cares about our ranking! It wasn't too long ago we where #1 and we all know how that ended up.
when we're we ranked #1?
We were ranked pretty high at some point which does makes sense considering the Habs are one of the teams that produced the most NHLers in the last decades, including quite a few quality ones. I'm not quite sure we were even no1, if we did it might have been when Price was winning a million junior and ahl awards and we just had the 2007 draft (one of the best by any teams in recent nhl history. heh not HFboards fault Gainey traded McDonagh). There were also had guys like Latendresse, Grabovski and Sergei Kostitsyn that looked very promising at the time (SK is still pretty good, Latendresse got derailed by injuries and getting rushed. Grabovski turned out to be a good player. We should have been more patient with them, in hindsight).
EDIT : Habs were 4th in 2007 and looking at other team's prospect list, its not that undeserved. Phoenix was ranked higher, believe it or not!
We were ranked pretty high at some point which does makes sense considering the Habs are one of the teams that produced the most NHLers in the last decades, including quite a few quality ones. I'm not quite sure we were even no1, if we did it might have been when Price was winning a million junior and ahl awards and we just had the 2007 draft (one of the best by any teams in recent nhl history. heh not HFboards fault Gainey traded McDonagh). There were also had guys like Latendresse, Grabovski and Sergei Kostitsyn that looked very promising at the time (SK is still pretty good, Latendresse got derailed by injuries and getting rushed. Grabovski turned out to be a good player. We should have been more patient with them, in hindsight).
EDIT : Habs were 4th in 2007 and looking at other team's prospect list, its not that undeserved. Phoenix was ranked higher, believe it or not!
when we're we ranked #1?
We ranked #2 in spring of 2007
http://www.hockeysfuture.com/articles/9672/hockeys_future_spring2007_organizational_rankings115/
I tried searching for the spring 2008 edition since I believe it was this one that we got the #1 spot but I had no luck.The fall edition of 2008 we had the #8 spot. We regained the #2 spot in spring of 2009
http://www.hockeysfuture.com/articles/11242/hockeys_future_spring2009_organizational_rankings110/
Its interesting to note that in looking at the 2009 rankings, the Habs later acquired the top team's (St. Louis) 3rd and 5th best prospects in Eller and Palushaj.