Evgeni Malkin's teammates furious over disrespect

He's been a mainstay with the Pittsburgh Penguins since his rookie season of 2006-07, and has widely been regarded as one of the NHL's best players during that time. Forward Evgeni Malkin will go down as one of the greats in Penguins history, helping them to three different Stanley Cup wins while capturing the Conn Smythe Trophy as playoff MVP in 2009.

However, according to a recent piece by ESPN, Malkin was not included in the current list of the 100 best players currently in the National Hockey League.

Among the players that were listed above Malkin include Tomas Hertl, Ryan O'Reilly, J.T. Miller, Robert Thomas, Chris Kreider, Nazem Kadri, Cole Caufield, Matthew Boldy, Trevor Zegras, Bo Horvat, Jordan Kyrou, Troy Terry and Alex Tuck.

And needless to say, Malkin's teammates were not impressed with this list.

"Oh my God, is this a joke? Gotta be a joke, right?" wondered Marcus Petterson. "To be honest, this is highway robbery. Come on. Looks at him. Geno's a little different right now."

"I would absolutely never read that article," said Ryan Graves. "That's literally crazy."

"Among the other players in the League, I assure you he ranks much, much higher," stated Rickard Rakell. "And I thought he was really good last year. But he's a different guy this year. He's still one of the great players."

"I'm in awe," said Lars Eller. "Trust me, this guy is still elite. I think the outside world doesn't understand and they don't give him the attention he should get, that Sid gets.

"How do you put some of the people on that list in front of him? Wow...incredible." - Ryan Graves

Are the folks at ESPN out to lunch on this one?

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