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.”

Chicago Blackhawks: I followed all the directions, and I have to say it really was super easy. In fact, I’ve already made this multiple times. Just wish I’d found this recipe earlier!

Edmonton Oilers: Three to five years? Uh, don’t think so. I’ve had this in the oven for six and it’s not even close to being done.

Philadelphia Flyers: I have a severe allergy to goaltending. Does anyone know of a way to make this dish without it?

Vancouver Canucks: I’ve never been able to get this one to work. Everything always seems fine, but at the very end when I go to serve it, everything crumbles. Then there’s usually a fire.

Pittsburgh Penguins: Not bad, but honestly this makes it sound more complicated than it needs to be. If you just toss in a lucky Ping-Pong ball, you can skip most of these other steps.

Colorado Avalanche: I followed this recipe a few times and it worked great. I figured I’d try it again recently, but this time I skipped a few steps, and it still worked out just as well so I’m not sure why you’d bother with … oh wait, my kitchen just flooded.

Edmonton Oilers: Now up to eight years and counting. Not sure why it’s working for everyone else and not me, but it’s definitely not my fault. I think I know a thing or two about cooking!

Toronto Maple Leafs: Not sure what everyone’s raving about, since I tried this recently and wasn’t impressed. Although I should mention that I didn’t have enough prospects, so I substituted compete level. Also, I couldn’t find the defenseman, so I substituted compete level. And instead of the trading, cheap depth, and free-agency value, I went with compete level. Anyway, the results were terrible. I guess I didn’t use enough compete level.

San Jose Sharks: I‘ve been trying to make this recipe for years, but I always end up choking on it.

Edmonton Oilers: I just realized my oven was unplugged this whole time.