The Blueshirts on Wednesday acquired veteran forward Alex Wennberg from the Kraken, sending their own 2024 second-round pick and a conditional fourth-round 2025 pick to Seattle, the team announced.

Wennberg, 29, recorded nine goals and 16 assists in 60 games this season, his third with the Kraken.

The Rangers have until Friday’s 3 p.m. deadline to make any additional trades for their Stanley Cup push.

Originally a 2013 first-round pick by Columbus, the two-way Wennberg joins a Rangers team that lost Blake Wheeler and center Filip Chytil to significant injuries.

Now in his 10th NHL season, Wennberg boasts 90 goals and 240 assists over 693 games with the Blue Jackets, Florida Panthers and Kraken. Wennberg’s 25 points this season were seventh-most on the Kraken and would rank eighth on the Rangers. His four game-winning goals and 65 blocked shots both led Seattle.

Wennberg’s best season came in 2016-17, when he recorded a career-high 59 points, including 46 assists, for Columbus. He scored a career-high 17 goals in 2020-21 during his lone season with Florida.

The Stockholm-born Wennberg has appeared in 42 playoff games, adding a little extra postseason experience to a Rangers team that leads the Metropolitan Division at 40-18-4.

The Rangers tied a franchise record with 10 consecutive wins between Jan. 27 and Feb. 24 but have since dropped three of four games, including Monday at home against the Atlantic-leading Panthers.

The Denver Broncos granted their lame-duck quarterback permission to meet with other teams before they officially release him next week, according to ESPN.

The Broncos plan to cut Wilson once the new league year begins on March 13, the team announced Monday, and will reportedly eat $85 million in dead money on his mega-contract.

“Tough times don’t last, but tough people do,” Wilson said in a statement Monday. “God’s got me. I am excited for what’s next.”

The 35-year-old Wilson, a Super Bowl champion and nine-time Pro Bowler with Seattle, threw for 26 touchdowns against eight interceptions last year but went just 11-19 over two disappointing seasons with Denver.

Wilson is due $39 million next season, though any team that signs him could do so for a minimum $915,000 contract, leaving Denver to pay the rest.

The Broncos traded a haul including two first-round picks, two second-round picks and quarterback Drew Lock to the Seahawks to acquire Wilson in 2022, then signed him to a five-year, $245 million extension.

But Denver failed to make the playoffs in either of Wilson’s seasons there, even after hiring Super Bowl-winning coach Sean Payton before the 2023 campaign. The Broncos were 7-8 and still alive for a wild-card spot when they benched Wilson for backup quarterback Jarrett Stidham in December.

“We’re desperately trying to win,” Payton told reporters at the time. “Sure, in our game today, there are economics and all those other things, but the number one push behind this, and it’s a decision I’m making, is to get a spark offensively.”

Wilson then claimed the Broncos threatened weeks earlier to bench him if he declined to adjust a $37 million guarantee in his contract that would trigger if he failed a physical in the offseason. Wilson said he did not agree to do so.

It’s unclear how much of a market Wilson faces following back-to-back uneven seasons, especially with multiple quarterback-needy teams picking high in next month’s NFL Draft, which is considered deep at the position. Kirk Cousins is expected to be the most in-demand quarterback in free agency.

Quintana had been scheduled to start the afternoon road game in West Palm Beach, Fla., which was briefly delayed before being canceled altogether.

The left-handed Quintana is now expected to start Thursday against the Washington Nationals at the Mets’ Clover Park, with Luis Severino sliding back to pitch Friday on the road against the Miami Marlins.

Quintana, 35, allowed two runs in 1.2 innings in his first start of the spring last week on the road against Houston.

“Overall, he was OK,” manager Carlos Mendoza said after that outing. “It was one of those outings where he goes out there to work on certain pitches, with the two-seam being one of them. He threw a good pitch to [Jose] Abreu and struck him out.”

With ace Kodai Senga set to miss the start of the season with a shoulder strain, the veteran Quintana could be in line to start the Mets’ regular-season opener against the Milwaukee Brewers on March 28 at Citi Field.

Last spring, Quintana was diagnosed with a rib legion. He didn’t debut until late July and ultimately pitched to a 3-6 record and a 3.57 ERA over 13 starts.

SENGA MAKES PROGRESS

The Mets continue to express optimism about Senga’s shoulder, with Mendoza on Wednesday describing the early stages of the right-hander’s rehab as “so far, so good.”

“He’s strengthening that shoulder,” Mendoza said. “He’s continuing to say that he’s feeling good, progressing well with the limited activity he’s doing. A lot of shoulder exercises.”

Senga received a platelet-rich plasma injection in late February for the strain in the posterior capsule of his right shoulder. At the time, the Mets shut down Senga’s throwing for three weeks.

The Japanese-born Senga recorded a 2.98 ERA and 202 strikeouts in 166.1 innings during his debut MLB season in 2023.

Mendoza has said the Mets don’t expect Senga’s injury to be a long-term issue.

“We’ll wait until he starts playing catch and all that, but as of right now, he’s moving in the right direction,” Mendoza said Wednesday.

RAIN DELAYS FUJINAMI

Wednesday was supposed to mark the first appearance this spring by reliever Shintaro Fujinami, who recently returned from his native Japan after dealing with a personal issue there.

The rain cancellation changes those plans.

The hard-throwing right-hander, who struggled with walks en route to a 7.18 ERA over 64 appearances with the Oakland A’s and Baltimore Orioles last season, joined the Mets in the offseason on a one-year, $3.35 million deal with incentives.

The sport’s changing landscape felt particularly evident to the former Alabama coach as he met with his team following the 2023 season, shortly before he retired.

“I thought we could have a hell of a team next year, and then maybe 70 or 80 percent of the players you talk to, all they want to know is two things: What assurances do I have that I’m going to play because they’re thinking about transferring, and how much are you going to pay me?” Saban told ESPN in an interview published Wednesday.

Saban, who won seven national championships in his 28 seasons as a head college football coach, retired in January at age 72, less than two weeks after leading the Crimson Tide to another berth in the College Football Playoff. Alabama replaced him with Kalen DeBour, who just took Washington to the national championship game.

While Saban didn’t specify why he decided to retire, he acknowledged to ESPN that his past methods weren’t resonating as much with today’s athletes.

“Our program here was always built on how much value can we create for your future and your personal development, academic success in graduating and developing an NFL career on the field,” Saban said.

“I’m saying to myself, ‘Maybe this doesn’t work anymore, that the goals and aspirations are just different and that it’s all about how much money can I make as a college player?’ I’m not saying that’s bad,” Saban said. “I’m not saying it’s wrong, I’m just saying that’s never been what we were all about, and it’s not why we had success through the years.”

The NCAA updated its rules in 2021, allowing players to make money off of their names, images and likenesses (NIL) and letting them transfer without sitting out a year.

Saban, who won six of his NCAA championships during his 17 seasons with Alabama, is hardly the first veteran coach to discuss the challenges presented by NIL and the transfer portal. Rick Pitino, who overhauled the St. John’s roster through the portal after taking the St. John’s job last year, has described college sports as free agency.

“It’s a tough time in college basketball right now, and for us, we can’t really build programs and a culture because everybody leaves,” Pitino said last month. “We did it with six fifth-year guys [this season]. They’re all gonna leave, and then we’ve got to replace [them] with new free agents.”

That’s according to ESPN’s Buster Olney, who mentioned the Mets’ interest in signing the crosstown superstar next offseason as a significant takeaway from his visit to Port St. Lucie this week.

“The most interesting thing heard at Mets’ camp yesterday — and it’s not surprising, given that the [Max] Scherzer contract (and others) will melt off their payroll next winter — is that they fully intend to take a run at Juan Soto next winter,” Olney wrote Wednesday on the social media site X.

Soto, whom the Yankees acquired in December in a franchise-altering trade with the San Diego Padres, is an impending free agent who is expected to pursue a historic contract when he hits the open market after the 2024 season.

Soto turned down a 15-year, $440 million extension offer from his original team, the Washington Nationals, in 2022, which prompted him to be traded that year to San Diego. Only 25 years old, Soto already boasts four top-10 finishes in NL MVP voting; three Silver Slugger Awards; three All-Star selections; a batting title; and a World Series championship.

The Mets and their deep-pocketed owner, Steve Cohen, largely avoided the top of this offseason’s free-agent class outside of a failed attempt to sign Japanese ace Yoshinobu Yamamoto, who joined the Los Angeles Dodgers on a record-setting $325 million contract over 12 years.

Next offseason figures to be different for the Mets, who must also decide whether to re-sign homegrown star first baseman Pete Alonso, who is set to be a free agent. Like Soto, the homer-hitting Alonso is represented by agent Scott Boras, who is notorious for getting his clients the most money possible.

“My whole focus this year is to be the best I can be, be as locked in mentally and physically as possible to help this team win,” Alonso said last month after arriving to spring training. “That’s my job. We’ll see what happens in the future. I don’t know what’s going to happen.”

The Mets gave contracts worth $43.3 million annually to Scherzer before the 2022 season and co-ace Justin Verlander a year later, only to trade both during the team’s disappointing 2023 campaign. The Mets are still paying sizable sums in 2024 to Scherzer, now of the Texas Rangers, and Verlander, who is now with the Houston Astros.

Scherzer’s contract ends after the 2024 season, while Verlander’s $35 million option for 2025 would vest if he pitches 140 innings this year. The Mets would owe Verlander, who is set to begin the season on the injured list with a shoulder issue, $17.5 million in 2025 should that option vest.

A Mets push for Soto could create a bidding war between the New York clubs, as the Yankees are also expected to try to re-sign the slugger after trading five players, including prized pitchers Michael King and Drew Thorpe, to acquire him and fellow outfielder Trent Grisham.

As Olney noted Wednesday, not every team can afford Soto, who crushed a career-high 35 home runs last season.

“You have a handful of tanking teams that would never consider taking on his salary,” Olney wrote on X.

Soto is off to a red-hot start in spring training, going 6-for-9 with five extra base hits, including three home runs, and seven RBI through his first four games. Soto, whose .421 career on-base percentage ranks 19th in MLB history, is batting second in the Yankees order, right in front of Aaron Judge.

The hulking right-hander hurled three hitless innings and struck out six Tuesday against a Yankees lineup missing many of its regulars, marking Megill’s latest strong outing of spring training.

Megill issued a pair of walks to shortstop Anthony Volpe and plunked second baseman Oswald Peraza but was otherwise dominant, at one point striking out four Yankees in a row during his scoreless start at Clover Park in Port St. Lucie.

The 6-7 Megill, 28, now boasts a 1.13 ERA and 13 strikeouts in 8.0 innings over three appearances this spring. He threw 29 of his 49 pitches for strikes Tuesday, with his fastball regularly hitting 94 miles per hour and sometimes reaching 95.

Megill is fighting to start the season in a Mets rotation that will begin the year without ace Kodai Senga, who is dealing with a strain in the posterior capsule of his right shoulder. The Japanese-born Senga, who posted a 2.98 ERA during an All-Star debut season last year, received a platelet-rich plasma injection in late February, and the Mets shut down his throwing for three weeks.

Originally a 2018 eighth-round pick, Megill last season made 25 starts for a Mets team that dealt with an early injury to Justin Verlander and later traded Verlander to Houston and co-ace Max Scherzer to Texas before the Aug. 1 deadline.

A three-year MLB veteran, Megill last season pitched to a pedestrian 4.70 ERA – right in line with his career mark of 4.72 – but is working this spring with new pitches including a sweeper and a cutter.

“It seems like this offseason went terrific and my pitch arsenal is completely different,” Megill told the Daily News last month. “My slider is spinning pretty true. I used to throw like a gyro-slider and now it’s spinning like a fastball. The sweeper is good. It’s tight and it’s big.”

Without Senga, the Mets’ rotation features a vacancy behind Jose Quintana, Luis Severino, Sean Manaea and Adrian Hauser. Other candidates to fill that fifth slot include Jose Butto, Joey Lucchesi and David Peterson, who each started games for the Mets last season.

“When we’re talking about a shoulder, it’s scary, but after going through and doing all the imaging and all of that, we feel a lot better [about Senga],” Mets manager Carlos Mendoza said on ESPN’s broadcast of Tuesday’s game. “Kodai’s feeling a lot better. We don’t think that is going to be a long-term injury. We are expecting Kodai to pitch a lot of games for us.”

Most of the Yankees’ starters did not travel to Port St. Lucie for Tuesday’s spring training edition of the Subway Series, though catcher Austin Wells, center fielder Trent Grisham and Oswaldo Cabrera all faced Megill, along with Volpe and Peraza.

The Mets won, 5-4, with Pete Alonso and Francisco Lindor both hitting doubles, and Lindor, Starling Marte and Brett Baty each recording an RBI.

Yankees top prospect Spencer Jones entered in the fifth inning and went 1-for-2 with a double, improving his batting average to .467 and his OPS to 1.289 in 15 spring at-bats. Mets third baseman Rylan Bannon robbed Jones of a would-be game-tying hit in the ninth inning with a diving stop on a ground ball that he turned into a force out. The Yankees re-assigned Jones to minor-league camp after the game.

Diaz ended the encouraging outing by striking out fast-rising Mets prospect Jett Williams on a backfield at Clover Park in Port St. Lucie, where the right-handed reliever’s trumpet-heavy entrance song “Narco” blared.

The 1-2-3 frame marked Diaz’s first time facing hitters in a game setting since he suffered the catastrophic knee injury nearly a year ago during the World Baseball Classic.

“I just feel like I need competition. I’m ready,” Diaz said afterward, according to SNY. “I’m throwing my pitches like I want to. I feel 100 percent ready, so I need games, I told them. …Today was really good.”

Diaz threw 14 pitches, with his fastball ranging from 96 to 98 miles per hour, according to Mets manager Carlos Mendoza.

“He came out good, so all positive there,” Mendoza said on the ESPN broadcast of Tuesday’s game between the Mets and Yankees.

Diaz, 29, continues to make progress in his rigorous rehab, having previously thrown live batting practice multiple times this spring, including to top bats Pete Alonso, Francisco Lindor and Brandon Nimmo on Feb. 23.

Diaz plans to return to Mets after appearing in another minor-league game Friday.

A two-time All-Star, Diaz pitched to a 1.31 ERA, 32 saves and 118 strikeouts in 62.0 innings during a dominant 2022 campaign, which he then parlayed into a five-year, $102 million contract that remains the biggest ever for a reliever in terms of total value.

Diaz didn’t pitch in 2023 after injuring his right knee as he celebrated a Puerto Rico victory in the WBC last March 16.

A healthy Diaz would bolster a Mets bullpen that posted a 4.45 ERA without him last season.

“It’s game time,” Diaz said Tuesday. “After my last live [BP] I told them I wanted to [raise] my level of competition, so I wanted to feel like I was in a real game. I know that was an intraquad game, but I knew I had to make pitches and field my position if they hit it by me or cover first. So, I told them I was ready to be in the games.”

MCNEIL MAKES PROGRESS

Tuesday also brought a positive injury update for Jeff McNeil, whose ailing arm is “feeling a lot better,” Mendoza said.

The Mets recently shut down the utility man with left biceps soreness.

“The downtime the past couple of days helped,” Mendoza told reporters. “We’re going to give it another couple of days before we put him on a hitting progression.”

McNeil was scheduled to go through a workout and participate in defensive drills Tuesday and could play defense in a minor-league game Wednesday.

The 31-year-old won the National League batting title with a .326 average in 2022. That average dipped to .270 during an injury-plagued 2023 season that ended a few days early due to a partially torn UCL in McNeil’s left elbow.

The 6-6 forward has been in and out of the Red Storm’s starting lineup, playing meaningful minutes in some games while riding the bench in others.

He enters Tuesday night’s must-win visit to DePaul on the upswing after leading St. John’s with 10 rebounds in a Feb. 25 victory against No. 15 Creighton and scoring a game-high 17 points in last Wednesday’s blowout of Butler.

“It’s not going to be high all the time,” Taylor said Monday. “The main thing was that I was trying to keep confidence in myself. … I stayed in the gym when things weren’t going well and I think that helped me out a lot. I feel like I found myself a lot this year, knowing I could go through adversity and stay positive.”

Taylor, a 21-year-old junior, transferred from Oregon State in May, joining a St. John’s roster that Rick Pitino overhauled after taking the head coaching job last March. Taylor started 18 of his 29 appearances this season but is averaging only 4.5 points in 17.7 minutes per game, down from his 11.6 points over 30.1 minutes with the Beavers last year.

His playing time plummeted as St. John’s slumped against the Big East, failing to record more than 11 minutes in any of the Red Storm’s seven games between Jan. 31 and Feb. 21. The Johnnies went 2-5 over that stretch and at one point lost eight of 10 games during conference play, delivering a blow to their NCAA Tournament hopes.

St. John’s has life, however, thanks to a three-game winning streak, including those double-digit victories over Creighton and Butler in which Taylor came up big.

“I saw in the Creighton game that they weren’t really boxing out, so I was just trying to attack the boards a lot,” Taylor said. “Against Butler, I just had open shots and I took them. My teammates were finding me and I knew that’s what we needed. Just coming into games, letting the game come to me and seeing what is needed of me at that time to win.”

Taylor played 32 minutes against Creighton and 30 minutes against Butler, helping fuel two of the Johnnies’ best wins of the year.

“He’s just a great team guy, but now he’s doing the things we expected of him,” Pitino said of Taylor after beating Butler. “His personality is so good. He’s so team oriented that he never really thinks about himself.”

St. John’s enters Tuesday with a 17-12 record, including 9-9 against the Big East. With the recent resurgence, St. John’s is now projected by Fox Sports’ Mike DeCourcy and CBS Sports’ Jerry Palm to be among the last four teams to make March Madness. ESPN’s Joe Lunardi still lists St. John’s among his first four teams to miss the Big Dance.

A win Tuesday against deplorable DePaul – which, at 0-18, sits dead last in the Big East – won’t much improve the Red Storm’s tournament hopes, though a loss would destroy them. Same goes for Saturday’s regular-season finale against 2-16 Georgetown at Madison Square Garden.

The Johnnies get a better chance to boost their résumé in next week’s Big East Tournament, where Taylor’s win-at-all-costs mentality could prove instrumental.

“I made a decision that I was going to keep it short and just play to win,” Taylor said. “I feel like I was thinking too much in those early games where I was off. I just decided to keep it short and allow my defense to translate to my offense.”

The right-handed hurler on Monday signed a three-year extension worth a reported $126 million to remain with the Philadelphia Phillies through 2027, demonstrating his standing as one of MLB’s premier pitchers.

That $42 million annual salary represents the fourth-largest in league history – all for a player the Mets let leave in free agency four years ago, and go to a division rival, no less.

“We think Zack is as good as anybody in baseball right now,” Dave Dombrowski, the Phillies’ president of baseball operations, said Monday at a news conference announcing the extension.

“I don’t think I could think of another individual I’d rather have take the ball in a big game.”

Wheeler, 33, boasts a 43-25 record, a 3.06 ERA and 675 strikeouts in 629.1 innings since joining the Phillies before the 2020 season, establishing himself as a dependable workhorse who overcame the injuries that plagued his early years.

He’s been even better in the postseason, pitching to a 2.42 ERA during Philadelphia’s runs to the World Series in 2022 and the NLCS last year.

Originally taken sixth overall by the San Francisco Giants in 2009, Wheeler went to the Mets two years later in a trade for Carlos Beltran. By the time he made his MLB debut in 2013, the hard-throwing Wheeler had emerged as one of baseball’s top prospects, inviting fantasies of an overpowering Mets rotation that, by 2015, also featured Matt Harvey, Jacob deGrom, Steven Matz and Noah Syndergaard.

That rotation crashed, however, as arm injuries ailed all five pitchers.

Wheeler underwent Tommy John surgery before the 2015 season to repair an elbow tear, rendering him inactive for the Mets’ run to the World Series that year. Subsequent setbacks cost Wheeler the 2016 season, too, threatening his future as a frontline MLB starter.

Arm issues persisted for Wheeler in 2017, who struggled to a 5.21 ERA over 17 starts during his first season in three years.

In 2018, Wheeler finally began to resemble the pitcher who arrived with so much hype.

Wheeler posted a 3.31 ERA over 182.1 innings in 29 starts, marking his best season in the majors. He followed that up in 2019 with a 3.96 ERA over a career-high 195.1 innings in 31 starts and entered free agency after back-to-back durable seasons.

Wheeler turned those encouraging campaigns into a five-year, $118 million contract with the Phillies, who paired him with All-Star Aaron Nola atop their rotation.

Before he signed with Philadelphia, Wheeler allegedly checked in with then-Mets general manager Brodie Van Wagenen, and said he heard “crickets.”

“That’s how they roll,” Wheeler said at the time.

In reference to Wheeler’s contract, Van Wagenen suggested the pitcher was able to “parlay two good half-seasons over the last five into $118 million.”

The deal paid off handsomely for Philadelphia, as Wheeler finished within the top 12 of National League Cy Young Award voting three times from 2020-23, including as the runner-up in 2021 and in sixth place last year. His 213.1 innings in 2021 led the NL.

“I just try to take the ball every time out and just be consistent and be consistently good,” Wheeler said Monday. “I’ve got to give credit to the training staff, keeping me out on the field, and working with Caleb [Cotham], our pitching coach. He’s helped me out a ton, off-speed wise, and just taking me to that next level.”

Wheeler’s extension kicks in for the 2025 season. The Mets handed out two of the three deals with larger annual salaries to since-traded aces Max Scherzer and Justin Verlander, whose contracts both average $43.3 million per year.

Ironically, as Wheeler thrives, the Mets’ current staff is dealing with a key injury to Kodai Senga, who is out indefinitely with a shoulder strain.

“We know pitching is a risk at any age,” Dombrowski said Monday. “We think [Wheeler] knows himself well, works well with the training staff, and we think he can continue to last and pitch at this type of level.”

If that’s the case, the Mets will be forced to watch Wheeler dominate for an NL East opponent for at least four more seasons.

It’s a two-year, $52 million contract, according to NFL Media, making the ultra-consistent Evans the NFL’s fourth-highest-paid receiver in terms of average annual salary.

Evans, 30, tied for the NFL lead with 13 touchdown receptions in 2023. His 79 catches and 1,255 receiving yards both represented his highest marks since 2018.

Originally selected seventh overall by Tampa in 2014, the 6-5 Evans is the only player in NFL history to eclipse 1,000 receiving yards in each of his first 10 NFL seasons. He was a favorite target of Tom Brady during the quarterback’s three-season stint with the Bucs from 2020-22 and was similarly relied upon by Baker Mayfield last year.

Evans was set to become one of the top wide receivers in a free-agent class that could include the Indianapolis Colts’ Michael Pittman, the San Francisco 49ers’ Brandon Aiyuk and the Jacksonville Jaguars’ Calvin Ridley.

The Cincinnati Bengals used the $21.8 million franchise tag on star receiver Tee Higgins, and Pittman is a candidate to be tagged by the Colts as well.

The Giants, who haven’t had a No. 1 wide receiver since trading away Odell Beckham Jr. in 2019, and the Jets, who boast little at the position beyond Garrett Wilson, are expected to explore upgrading their receiver rooms this offseason. Both teams boast top 10 picks in next month’s draft, which is considered a deep one for wide receivers.

Evans, a five-time Pro Bowler, failed to reach an extension with Tampa last offseason and played out of the final year of his previous five-year, $82.5 million deal in 2023.

Only Miami’s Tyreek Hill ($30 million), Las Vegas’ Davante Adams ($28 million) and the Los Angeles Rams’ Cooper Kupp ($26.7 million) have higher average annual salaries than Evans’ new $26 million yearly income.

Retaining Evans keeps one of the NFL’s best wide receiver duos intact. Chris Godwin, who signed a three-year, $60 million extension with Tampa in 2022, is fresh off his third consecutive 1,000-yard season.

Tampa can now turn its attention to re-signing Mayfield, an impending free agent who set career highs with 4,044 passing yards and 28 touchdowns in 2023 and led the Bucs to a playoff win against the Philadelphia Eagles. The Bucs, who won the Super Bowl with Brady after the 2020 season, have made the playoffs four years in a row and won the NFC South in each of the last three.

NFL free agency begins March 13.