Saturday's Rangers-Islanders game could be a first-round playoff preview if the Isles win, because they'd all but lock up the No. 3 spot in the division while the Rangers would be in peril of dropping to No. 2.
Don't count it out, according to one Boomer & Gio caller Friday:
"They look like the soft team that's gonna give up so many chances in the playoffs over a seven-game series; guys like Kucherov or Crosby and Malkin are gonna wear this team down defensively, and you could see it already – and I love the guy, but Mika Zibanejad, it just comes and goes so much with him. Sometimes he looks like the best player on the planet, or he doesn't know when to shoot or pass and does one when he should do the other."
Boomer won't criticize players, but he needs to see his Blueshirts finish strong.
"I wanna see how this season ends. I want to see how these last two games go and I want them to finish strong and feel good about themselves going into the playoffs," Booms said. "I don't think they're a soft team; I know that when Matt Rempe plays, it's a different kind of team, but it's not about retribution tomorrow or hammering somebody and getting into fights.
It's about getting two points and imposing your will on a team that imposed their will on you. You skated circles around them in the second and third periods and couldn't get the puck past Varlamov to tie the game or to win the game, and I'm sure they're gonna see Sorokin tomorrow."
"So you're not going to have a line brawl at the beginning of this one on Kids' Day?" Gio snarked back, and Boomer admitted maybe had the Rangers won Tuesday at UBS or last night against the Flyers and locked up the top spot, but even if Rempe plays to 'charge up the crowd,' it's 'potentially a sleepy game.'
"The Islanders are playing their best hockey of the year right now, so I would just think that the Rangers got to come out and play solid hockey and go win the freaking game, and shoot the puck a little bit more in five-on-five as opposed to always trying to make the perfect pass," Booms said. "But believe me, there are enough guys that are playing poorly right now, and they know who they are."
Another caller noted he doesn't think the Rangers have the physical players to make it happen in the playoffs, which Booms disagreed with…although he knows there are no guarantees.
"They've had a great season, and they've had two really disappointing losses here, but I don't want to take that and use those losses as an ending of a season that has been great," Boomer said. "We all should have expectations for this team; that's why they went out and got the players that they got. It's about time for some of these guys to do something, and I think they will. I still believe that this team is a very good team and they can beat anybody they play, but as we saw last year, the same thing could happen, they could lose to anybody."
