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Filip Chytil turned a career-best season into a contract extension with the Rangers. 

The Czech center signed a four-year deal with an average annual value of $4.438 million to remain a Blueshirt through the 2026-27 season, according to a source. 

With the deal, the Rangers solidified their top three centers for the foreseeable future. 

Chytil was set be a restricted free agent with arbitration rights. His new contract covers the next two years of his RFA status. 

It is believed the Rangers are aiming to keep all of their young core. They will negotiate with K’Andre Miller and Alexis Lafreniere on their new contracts soon. 

Jalen Brunson had a superb season, from the start until the bitter end, but the Knicks’ other top players couldn’t do nearly enough to help him keep that season alive.

Brunson followed up his 48-minute masterpiece from two nights earlier  with 41 points in 45 minutes, but the Knicks received little production from Julius Randle and RJ Barrett in a crushing, season-ending 96-92 loss to the Heat in Game 6 of their Eastern Conference semifinal series at Kaseya Center.

“You’ve got to give the Heat a lot of credit. They didn’t play like an eight seed, at all,” Brunson said. “For me, we did a lot of great things this season. We obviously want the team to keep playing, to have the opportunity.

“It stings a little bit, definitely a learning experience. But if you don’t win, you lose.”

Aside from Brunson, who finished 14-for-22 from the field, the other four Knicks starters shot a combined 15.6 percent (5-for-32). 

That shoddy statistic included 20 of 24 misses by Randle (15 points) and Barrett (11) as the Knicks fell to 0-15 in their history when trailing 3-1 in a best-of-seven playoff series.

The Yankees made the most of their get-right series by sweeping the worst team in baseball. Now they will try to funnel that momentum into taking another shot at the best team in baseball.

In between showdowns against the division rival Rays, the Yankees got a laugher of a series against the Athletics, which they completed with an 11-3 blowout in The Bronx — capped off by Anthony Volpe’s first career grand slam.

Coming off a brutal loss to the Rays on Sunday in Tampa, in which they blew a 6-0 lead and coughed up a chance to win the series, the Yankees came home to the soft cushion of playing the lowly A’s. 

The three-game series was a welcome respite — in which the Yankees combined to outscore the A’s 28-10 — from an otherwise mediocre start to the season.

Before welcoming the Rays to The Bronx for a four-game series on Thursday, the Yankees enjoyed one more round of batting practice that counted as a real game on Wednesday. 

It included a three-hit day from Aaron Judge, more home runs for Harrison Bader and DJ LeMahieu, and Volpe’s first-pitch grand slam that put an exclamation point on a seven-run fifth inning.

Legendary rocker Ozzy Osbourne has announced his retirement from touring.

The Black Sabbath frontman, 74, pulled the plug on all of his upcoming shows in the UK and Europe as he continues to recover from spinal surgery.

In a statement shared on social media, the “Crazy Train” hitmaker said he’s no longer able to tour around the globe due to the damage his spine has endured in a nasty accident four years ago.

Apologizing to fans, Osbourne acknowledged he “never would have imagined that my touring days would have ended this way.”

“I am honestly humbled by the way you’ve all patiently held onto your tickets for all this time, but in all good conscience, I have now come to the realization that I’m not physically capable of doing my upcoming European/UK tour dates, as I know I couldn’t deal with the travel required,” the Brit said.

After taking a 6-0 lead against the Rays and blowing it with Gerrit Cole on the mound, the Yankees came back to force extra innings before suffering a crushing loss.

The Rays walked it off for an 8-7 win in 10 innings in front of 32,142 in a playoff-like atmosphere at Tropicana Field.

Despite the teams being separated by nine games entering the series — with the Rays (28-7) atop the AL East and the Yankees (18-17) in last place, just as they finished the weekend — they played three one-run games. 

And yet dropping two of three, especially with how gut-wrenching Sunday’s finale was, felt like a brutal swing for the beaten-up Yankees.

“I feel like we could have walked away with three of these games and they probably feel the same way,” Anthony Rizzo said.

After the Yankees’ bullpen had already used Jimmy Cordero, Clay Holmes, Wandy Peralta and Michael King to get through the ninth inning — with Ian Hamilton and Ron Marinaccio unavailable — Albert Abreu came on for the bottom of the 10th and allowed a one-out single to Isaac Paredes to end it.

The Mets put forth another uninspiring performance in a 5-2 loss to the Rockies at Citi Field. Tylor Megill was shaky early, giving up a run in each of the first two innings. 

The Mets came back to tie the game, but Megill was unable to get out of the fifth and departed the game with the Mets down 3-2. Stephen Nogosek surrendered a two-run homer to Ezequiel Tovar in the sixth that sealed the deal for the Rockies.

Pete Alonso and Francisco Lindor each had an RBI groundout, but the Mets have mustered only four runs in four games. With a major league-record $355 million payroll, New York (17-17) has lost 10 of 13 since winning eight of nine.

“We have gotten outside of what we do best, including myself,” Lindor said. “We’re going to go through stretches like this. We just have to keep on pushing, fight the fight, and stay within ourselves.”

The New Jersey Devils, who made the playoffs for the first time since 2018, will continue on their journey to the Stanley Cup as they defeated their Hudson River rival, the New York Rangers, 4-0, in Game 7 of their first round series. 

With their first playoff series win in 11 years, the Devils will now head down to Carolina to face the Hurricanes, who took care of the New York Islanders in six games in their first round matchup. 

It felt like all Devils throughout this game, as they were constantly pressuring the Rangers on both ends of the ice. New York’s netminder Igor Shesterkin, though, kept his team in the game after a scoreless first period, but then the Devils broke through scoring four goals.

The Rangers were shut out in Game 5 at The Rock by 22-year-old Akira Schmid, and he did the same thing when it mattered most for New Jersey here in Game 7. 

The third period of Game 6 on Friday night at UBS Arena should have been the ideal time for what’s come to be known as Islanders hockey. A club with a sturdy reputation was just 20 minutes away from sending its series with the Hurricanes to a decisive seventh game in Raleigh, leading 1-0 after two periods.

Instead,  the Hurricanes skated all over them. They outshot the Islanders 19-5, enjoyed an 11-1 advantage in high-danger scoring chances, and tied the game at 1-1 on Sebastian Aho’s goal midway through. Paul Stastny’s overtime goal six minutes into overtime ended the Islanders’ season.

They had lost a winnable series, blowing leads in both Game 2 and Game 6 that will haunt them for the entire off-season. 

And they might have lost their best chance of an extended playoff run with this core of players.

“One-goal leads in the playoffs are just not safe,” Mathew Barzal said in a dead-quiet locker room, repeating a mantra the Islanders learned in the first round to their chagrin.

The deeper and tougher Knicks had little trouble overpowering and vanquishing the Cavaliers in the end, even with negligible contributions  for most of the first round from their lone All-Star.

One game after Julius Randle had been benched for the entire fourth quarter of Sunday’s win at Madison Square Garden, he re-injured his left ankle late in the second quarter and didn’t play in the second half.

And Tom Thibodeau’s gritty squad absorbed every punch once more and prevailed yet again.

Jalen Brunson finished with a team-high 23 points and Obi Toppin filled in ably for Randle in the second half as the Knicks dispatched the Cavs in five games, finishing them off without their leading scorer for the final two quarters of a series-sealing 106-95 victory Wednesday night at a silenced Rocket Mortgage FieldHouse.

Thibodeau and the Knicks deservedly will make the franchise’s first trip to the second round of the playoffs since 2013 and only their second since 2000. 

RJ Barrett capped a strong final three games of the series with 21 points on 7-for-13 shooting, and Josh Hart started in place of Quentin Grimes again and registered 12 rebounds in 47 heartbeat minutes, including the entire second half.

The Green Bay Packers and New York Jets have agreed to trade longtime Packers quarterback Aaron Rodgers to the Big Apple, Packers general manager Brian Gutekunst said.

The two sides are working out the details, but he expects the trade to be completed soon.

The long-awaited trade will see the four-time NFL Most Valuable Player sent to the Jets along with the Packers’ 15th overall pick in the 2023 NFL Draft, according to reports from ESPN and NFL Network.

The Packers will receive the Jets’ 13th overall pick in this month’s draft, as well as one of the Jets’ second-round picks and their 2024 first-round draft pick if Rodgers plays at least 65% of the Jets’ offensive plays this season.

Rodgers, 39, has spent his entire 18-season NFL career with the Packers, where he led the team to a 31-25 victory in Super Bowl XLV in 2011.