The Rangers and Devils are set to meet in preseason action at Madison Square Garden on Thursday night, and Boomer is grapping with the reality that he isn’t feeling his usual sense of excitement for the upcoming season.
Why? The pain of a game seven loss to the hated Hudson River rivals still runs deep.
“I still haven’t gotten game five and game seven out of my system,” Boomer said. “They still have to earn my respect…I’m totally ambivalent about it.
“I don’t know, I’m just not excited. I watched the Ranger/Islander game the other night, and there was no energy, no juice, no nothing. It all stems back, for me personally…to the ugliness of the way it all ended last year, and to who it ended with. When you see those young players wearing the black and red flying up and down the ice not making plays, and you see our guys not doing that…I can’t come out of it.”
The Rangers dominated the first two games of their first-round series against New Jersey last year, winning by a combined score of 10-2 heading back to MSG, only for the Devils to rattle off three straight wins, then close it out with a dominant shutout win at home in a decisive game seven.
The Rangers responded by firing head coach Gerard Gallant, while Boomer still hasn’t recovered with the season just weeks away from starting.
“Those two games against the Devils last year were a disgrace,” Boomer said. “An effin disgrace.”