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The Average San Jose Sharks

• the neighbor’s golden retriever who stole 8 hamburgers from your 4th of July barbecue
• some excellent player from Minnesota whose name everyone promptly forgets
• Carrie Underwood
• that guy in your english lit class who read Kerouac’s On The Road and is literally physically incapable of shutting up about the death of American masculinity and who watches the blackhawks just often enough to be insufferable about his knowledge
• Amanda Kessel sporting a fake beard
• Jason Momoa, shirtless but protected by the power of his own beauty
• the smell of a Taco Bell at 4am
• the blandest white man on this season of The Bachelorette (the competition will be stiff)
• a customer service person who clearly doesn’t want to be smiling at you but is doing so anyhow
• a dump truck full of sand sprinkled over the entire roster for “grit”
• someone dressed head-to-toe (snapback-to-slide-sandals) in underarmour athletic wear
• twitter user soloucity aka Tony X.
• every child in this year’s Kraft Hockeyville USA
• the vengeful but impotent spirit of USA Hockey

• Snoop Dogg, mic’d up and swearing
• an alligator in a Florida Panthers jersey
• the slightly too good-looking American dude who’s gonna play Brent Burns in the Hollywood movie about John Scott
• an unexpectedly mild-mannered Texas longhorn steer
• a gallon of sweet tea laced with arsenic
• someone totally bewildered by the idea that Canada has its own Thanksgiving
• a battered VHS tape of 2004′s Miracle 
• the entire Las Vegas Golden Knights roster as of April 4, 2017

• the personification of Ben Bishop’s sadness about being traded
• 15 starbucks frappuccinos arranged in a pyramid
• a very expensive wall that actually does a really terrible job keeping stuff out

When Pens winger Phil Kessel arrived at Ricoh Coliseum for Pittsburgh’s optional practice on Friday, he was met with a surprise.

Instead of finding his gear in a locker stall, it was set up on a chair outside of the locker room, complete with a case of Coke-a-Cola, cups for coffee, some signs and a big sign above it all reading “The Phil Zone.”

The prank was the brainchild of center Evgeni Malkin and head equipment manager Dana Heinze.

The backstory is this. On Thursday the Pens were playing against the New Jersey Devils at Prudential Center. However, there were only 24 locker stalls available and 25 players in attendance.

Heinze approached Malkin out of respect and asked if he would mind being placed in a chair, since he was not playing that evening against the Devils. Malkin, of course, was fine with it.

Heinze set out to find “the nicest chair possible,” and set up his gear on the seat. As the team arrived for the morning skate, Kessel began chirping both Heinze and Malkin. He even tweeted a pic of the seat saying: “Pigeon couldn’t even get a regular stall.”

So Malkin and Heinze put their heads together for some payback.

“It wasn’t my idea. It was Dana. He said we need to answer,” Malkin said. “I wanted to answer today and Dana helped me.”