Peter DeBoer fan of optional morning skates

TAMPA, Fla. — Peter DeBoer has made plenty of changes in his brief time as Golden Knights coach, but he and predecessor Gerard Gallant have a key thing in common: Their preference for optional morning skates.

Neither coach feels compelled to make their players hit the ice before games. If players want to skate, they can. If not, that’s fine by DeBoer, too.

“I’m a big fan of optionals,” DeBoer said. “I like to put players’ preparation in their own hands. Different guys, different ages have different routines that make them feel good to go at night. I put a lot of responsibility on guys to get themselves ready for the game at night, because I find a lot of times they know better than I do what makes them tick.”

DeBoer has made two of his four morning skates optional so far. The entire team was present for Friday’s in Raleigh, North Carolina, as the coach reviewed a lot of the system changes he tried to install at the previous day’s practice.

On Tuesday, 10 players stepped on the Amalie Arena ice in Tampa, where the team played that night. The rest were left to prepare however they saw fit.

It’s a strategy DeBoer was known for in San Jose, which has the oldest roster (average age of 29.6) in the NHL, per Hockey-Reference.com. It makes sense he would bring it to the Knights, who have the sixth-oldest roster.

He trusts his veterans to know what they need. For some, that means doing off-ice work or taking it easy. For others, that means getting a skate in.

“I’m up, I might as well do something,” said defenseman Jon Merrill, one of the players who skated Tuesday morning. “Get a little sweat going. Feel better about napping, I guess.”

No matching on road

Another philosophy DeBoer shared Tuesday morning is that he dislikes line matching on the road, when he doesn’t have the last change.

It was a strategy Gallant employed at times. Notably this season, he had center William Karlsson’s line take the bulk of the 5-on-5 minutes against the Washington Capitals’ Alexander Ovechkin, the St. Louis Blues’ Ryan O’Reilly and the Vancouver Canucks’ Elias Pettersson.

DeBoer divided ice time more evenly between his top two lines when the Knights visited the Boston Bruins and their frightening trio of center Patrice Bergeron, left wing Brad Marchand and right wing David Pastrnak before their bye. He planned to do the same thing Tuesday against the Lightning, who have a fearsome top line featuring 2019 Hart Trophy winner Nikita Kucherov.

“You get married to line matchups like that; what it does is it gets you out of your four-line rotation. The other team really controls when you put your players on the ice,” DeBoer said. “We have to be a four-line team. We have to be comfortable that whoever gets stuck out there, they can get the job done on the road.”

Contact Ben Gotz at bgotz@reviewjournal.com. Follow @BenSGotz on Twitter.