BLUE CHIP: Brad Richards (second from left, with teammates Derek Stepan, Marian Gaborik and Ryan Callahan) has brought his professionallsm and star quality from Dallas, and it’s paying big dividends for the Rangers this season. (Getty Images)
A review of his contract might lead one to call him “Richie Rich,” except Brad Richards is every bit a lunch pail pro with as much of a blue-collar approach to his work as anyone in the Rangers’ room, if not the NHL.
He’s a star, an upper-echelon player whose presence and sense of professionalism have elevated the Blueshirts on and off the ice; a star, after dropping the capital “S” upon leaving Dallas for New York this summer as a free agent.
“It’s nobody’s fault that I left [the Stars], it was my decision and I take full accountability for it,” said Richards, who will face his former team tonight at the Garden. “The three [full] years I was there, we didn’t make the playoffs, and the organization wasn’t spending the money that six, seven or eight other teams were in the tough Western Conference.
“There are a lot of good people there and I have a lot of good friends there, but I’m not looking back. That’s the business we’re in.”
Richards chose New York on July 2 after the Rangers offered a front-loaded nine-year, $60 million contract under which the center will have received $20 million by next July 1. There were two larger offers, but no other franchise could offer John Tortorella as the coach, and as the season evolves it becomes more apparent by the day how beneficial that relationship is to the team.
The significance of their mutual trust cannot be minimized in analyzing Tortorella’s decision to move Richards off Marian Gaborik’s line — what was perceived as the first line; the glamour line — just eight games into the season.
It was the coaching decision that established the foundation for the season, coming when the team was 3-3-2, establishing as it did a balanced attack featuring Gaborik with Derek Stepan and Artem Anisimov on one line, and Richards with Ryan Callahan and either Ruslan Fedotenko or Brandon Dubinsky on another.
And it was a decision Tortorella almost certainly would not have been able to effect so seamlessly with a high-priced free agent with whom he did not have a history. And it was a move that a different kind of personality might have resisted rather than embraced, as Richards did.
These are examples of leadership that do not go unnoticed within a team. These are examples of leadership that help explain why the Rangers are 17-6-4.
Richards could have come to the Rangers last year at the trade deadline. But, according to an individual with knowledge of the situation, he declined to waive his no-move clause when he learned of the bounty (three Grade A assets) the Stars were demanding in return, not wanting the Blueshirts to be diluted upon his arrival.
And so Broadway would wait for Richards, who has recorded 25 points (11-14) with the promise of better things ahead.
“I have to admit that even though I wanted to come here, it was a hell of a transition, especially since I’m not the kind of person who is the best at adapting to change,” Richards told The Post. “Mentally, it took its toll on me, and I wasn’t as sharp as I wanted to be or needed to be, but thankfully I got great support from my teammates and we were winning.
“I’m starting to feel it come now. I feel comfortable being here and living here. The best is ahead of me.”
Said Richards, no longer a Dallas Star, but a star on Broadway.