"Brad Richards is off the market. The big fish among this year's crop of free agents has reportedly agreed to a nine-year contract Saturday to play for the New York Rangers.

TSN's Darren Dreger is reporting Richards' deal has an average annual value of $6.5 million.

Richards spent Friday at his agent Pat Morris' office in Mississauga, Ont., listening to pitches from several teams both in person and via conference calls. He decided to sleep on it and come to a final decision Saturday.

The Rangers were not one of the teams that showed up at the offices of Newport Sports Management, Inc. on Friday, but Larry Brooks of the New York Post tweeted that James Dolan, Executive Chairman of Madison Square Garden, personally spoke to Richards. The Rangers also held off from making any big deals throughout Friday in order to land Richards.

New York signed Mike Rupp for three years and $4.5 million and re-signed Ruslan Fedotenko for one year and $1.4 million.

Richards, who had 77 points in 72 games with Dallas last season, immediately becomes the Rangers' No. 1 center and will likely open training camp with Marian Gaborik on his right wing. New York's depth at center also looks much better with Richards now ahead of Artem Anisimov, Erik Christensen, Brian Boyle and Derek Stepan.

Richards has 716 points in 772 games over his NHL career, which began in 2000-01 with the Lightning. He spent seven-plus seasons in Tampa Bay, winning the Stanley Cup and Conn Smythe Trophy in 2004, before being traded to Dallas late in the 2007-08 season. He had 91 points in 80 games two seasons ago.

Other teams believed to have made contract offers to Richards or at least discussed the possibility include Los Angeles, Toronto, Tampa Bay, Philadelphia and Calgary."