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The Rangers survived one natural disaster, and they’ll get another as a reward.

New York completed its rally from a 3-1 deficit with a 6-2 win over the Hurricanes in Game 7 of their second-round series on Monday at PNC Arena in Raleigh, N.C.

Adam Fox and Chris Kreider scored first-period power play goals for the Blueshirts, who got 36 stops from Igor Shesterkin in the win — the team’s second Game 7 win of the 2022 NHL playoffs.

Ryan Strome added to the lead with a second-period tally with Kreider making it 4-0 early in the third.

The Hurricanes got a slim ray of hope with Tony DeAngelo’s third-period goal — but those hopes were quickly dashed when Filip Chytil picked up a loose puck in the offensive zone and quickly put it behind Pytor Kochetkov for a 5-1 lead. Max Domi’s late goal made it 5-2 before Andrew Copp’s empty-net goal made it 6-2.

Now, the Rangers will face the reigning Stanley Cup champion Tampa Bay Lightning in the Eastern Conference Final.

The Boston Celtics are headed to the 2022 NBA Finals — their first trip to the championship round since 2010 — and they will meet an experienced Golden State Warriors team that knows how to win on this stage.

The Warriors are back in the Finals after beating the Dallas Mavericks in five games during the Western Conference Finals. It’s the Warriors’ sixth NBA Finals appearance in the last eight years. They won three of the previous five, including back-to-back titles in 2017 and 2018.

Oddsmakers have made the Warriors slight favorites for the series.

The Warriors are loaded with championship experience and plenty of talent, but the Celtics present a tough matchup for Golden State with their scoring depth, versatility and No. 1 ranked defense.

It is what the Rangers expect, and it is what has made them so good all year.

There is little new they can say about it, thus their tendency to reply to questions about Igor Shesterkin by simply saying he’s done the same thing for them all season.

But that does not stop Shesterkin from continuing his ascendency to superstardom. It does not stop the Garden crowd from serenading him. And it does not help opponents to score. Not in the slightest.

Shesterkin was again superlative in the Rangers’ 4-1 Game 4 victory over the Hurricanes, setting the tone early with a slide across his crease to get a glove on Brett Pesce’s shot. He finished with 30 saves, a victory and 18,006 patrons chanting his name. That is what the Rangers have come to expect from a player all but guaranteed to take home the Vezina Trophy this season.

“Same thing every night,” Rangers coach Gerard Gallant said. “Helps our team, battles. I think it was the second shift of the game, he made that save on the backdoor with his glove and that’s huge for us to get the lead and him making those saves early in the game.”

After a pair of Game 7s on Sunday, the NBA’s conference final matchups are set. In the West, it’ll be the No. 3 Warriors against the No. 4 Dallas Mavericks. In the East, it’s the No. 1 Miami Heat vs. the No. 2 Boston Celtics. 

Boston-Miami begins on Tuesday. Golden State-Dallas starts on Wednesday.

We’ve said all season that this was going to be a wild postseason, and it certainly has been. The title hasn’t been this up for grabs in quite a while. It genuinely feels like any one of these four teams could end up in the Finals.

Tom Brady finally revealed what made him come out of retirement. 

When the Buccaneers quarterback ended his 40-day retirement, he said in his social media announcement that he has “unfinished business” to attend to in the coming season — and avenging a playoff loss to the Rams might be at the top of his list. 

“At the end of the day, I just love the competition on the field. And last year was a very bitter ending to a season and we’ve got to make a lot of corrections to try to improve and put ourselves in a better position to succeed moving forward,” Brady told ESPN.

The Buccaneers’ season ended in a 30-27 loss to the Rams in the NFC Divisional playoff game — and Los Angeles went on to beat the Bengals to win the Super Bowl in February. 

After spending time with his wife and kids in his short offseason, Brady began to feel like he should still be playing. He spoke with close confidants in Tampa, including former coach Bruce Arians, who moved to a front-office role and handed the coaching reigns to defensive coordinator Todd Bowles. 

According to ESPN, Brady said he’s excited about the “challenge” the Buccaneers have with Bowles taking over. His short-lived retirement was also due in part to a number of realizations he had about himself and what he still has to offer the game of football.

Without both of their trophy-winning aces — and three of their top six starters altogether — the undeterred Mets continued to rack up wins at Citi Field.

Max Scherzer joined fellow multi-time Cy Young winner Jacob deGrom on the injured list, but the Mets overcame a blown save by Edwin Diaz on Pete Alonso’s two-run homer in the 10th for an exhilarating 7-6 win over the Cardinals at Citi Field.

Diaz couldn’t preserve a 5-4 lead for starter Chris Bassitt in the ninth. With runners on the corners and two outs, third baseman Eduardo Escobar couldn’t come up with what was ruled an infield single for Paul Goldschmidt to tie the score. The go-ahead run against Colin Holderman in the 10th scored on a double-play grounder by retiring star Albert Pujols in likely his final at-bat in Flushing.

But with Francisco Lindor serving as the automatic runner at second base, Alonso crushed Cardinals closer Giovanny Gallegos’ 1-0 slider into the second deck in left for his third career walk-off homer as the Mets improved to 26-14 through 40 games entering a six-game road trip  beginning Friday in Colorado.

It’s hard to pick who’s on a better run right now, the Yankees or Aaron Judge.

Judge, with chants of “MVP” growing louder by the at-bat, even with the Yankees on the road at Camden Yards, homered twice on Tuesday, as the Yankees continued their torrid start with a 5-4 win over the Orioles.

The Yankees have won eight of their past nine games and improved to 27-9 for the first time since, you guessed it, 1998.

Judge was a menace throughout the game — his first four-hit game of the season — and was prevented from hitting three homers by the new left-field wall that’s deeper and higher than in the past in Baltimore.

“He almost had three, but the ‘Build your own ballpark’ got him there,’’ Boone said of the new-look Camden Yards left field.

It was Judge’s third multi-home run game of the year.

The resiliency, the no-quit fire and the insatiable desire to be a winning club has been at the heart of the Rangers all season long. 

And that is why this Rangers team was able to rally from a 3-1 series deficit, stave off elimination twice and then force overtime in Game 7 before Artemi Panarin punched their ticket to the second round of the Stanley Cup playoffs 4:46 into the extra period to secure a 4-3 win over the Penguins in front of a sold-out Madison Square Garden. 

This Rangers team is the first in Stanley Cup playoff history to record three consecutive comeback wins in elimination games within the same series 

This Rangers team became just the third in franchise history to overcome a 3-1 series deficit. 

This Rangers team is one step closer to the Stanley Cup. 

Lou Lamoriello showed his commitment to the Islanders’ aging core by standing pat at the March trade deadline.

But all year when asked about head coach Barry Trotz’s contract — which was expiring at the end of the 2022-23 season — Lamoriello demurred. And on Monday morning, in a stunning move, Lamoriello fired the Jack Adams Award winner in a tacit admission that something had to change following a season in which the Islanders failed to come close to meeting their preseason Stanley Cup goal.

“I believe this group of players needs a new voice,” Lamoriello said on a conference call with media. “This is not negative on Barry Trotz. He is a tremendous human being.”

As for the assistant coaches — a group that includes associate coach  Lane Lambert and goaltending coach Mitch Korn, people who have worked with Trotz for a long period — Lamoriello would only say they were under contract for next season, though the new coach will have a say in whether that remains the case. Lamoriello did not commit to a timetable for the hire.

Rich Strike made one of the most remarkable come-from-behind victories in the history of the Kentucky Derby at Churchill Downs in Louisville, Kentucky.

Rich Strike entered the race as an 80-1 favorite to win and is the second-longest shot ever to win the Derby.

As the horses entered the final stretch, Rich Strike put up a furious push on the inside to pass Epicenter and Zandon, who were favored at 4-1 and 6-1, respectively.

A $2 bet on Rich Strike to win pays out $163.60. A $2 exacta bet pays $4,101.2, while a $1 trifecta bet pays $14,870.70 and a $1 superfecta pays out $321.500.10.