One day last summer, the Rangers seized the attention of their city and their sport by signing the most coveted free agent in the NHL, center Brad Richards. The deal was a staggering one—nine years, $60 million, a $12 million salary in the first season that would make Richards the league's highest-paid player—and the organization's justification for it was simple: Richards had won a Stanley Cup as a member of the Tampa Bay Lightning in 2004. He had been a marvelous playoff performer throughout his 10-year career. The Rangers would pay him for the promise that he would do the same for them.

Derek Stepan celebrates after scoring the Rangers' first goal of a 3-2 win over the Senators on Monday night in Ottawa. The Canadian Press/Associated Press

With his team one loss away from a stunning first-round exit from the postseason Monday, Richards provided what so far has been his most vital validation of the Rangers' commitment to him. He set up a momentum-shifting goal and added an important power-play goal himself in the Rangers' 3-2 victory over the Ottawa Senators in Game 6 of the Eastern Conference quarterfinals.

New York's victory tied the series at three games apiece and set up a decisive Game 7 on Thursday night at Madison Square Garden. Should the Rangers, the East's No. 1 seed, win Thursday, it will mark the second time in their 86-year history that they will have rallied from a three-games-to-two deficit to win a playoff series and the first time since they beat the New Jersey Devils in the 1994 Eastern Conference Finals.

That year, of course, the Rangers went on to win the Stanley Cup. A decade later, Richards won the Conn Smythe Trophy as the playoffs' MVP as he helped Tampa Bay win its only championship—an experience, he said recently, that taught him a lesson about the mental endurance a team must have during the NHL postseason.

"There were some bad times during that run," Richards said. "If you let yourself think, 'This could be done, could be over. It's not going our way,' it can grab you and snowball quickly. Starting with the Eastern Conference Finals, we didn't win two games in a row until Games 6 and 7 of the Finals, so it was a lot of ups and downs. Win one, lose one, win one, lose one—your mind can play tricks on you and get you down."

The Rangers confronted a similar challenge Monday. They trailed 1-0 after the first period, and they had not scored a goal since the first seven minutes of Game 4, a span of 145 minutes, 27 seconds. But on a power play 8:55 into the second period, Richards slid a cross-ice pass to Derek Stepan, who flicked the puck over Ottawa goaltender Craig Anderson to tie the game at 1.

It was Stepan's first point in 11 playoff games. It would not be his last. With the Rangers on a two-man advantage, he assisted on Richards's second goal of the series—a slap shot over Anderson's right arm at 17:08. Stepan then set up rookie Chris Kreider, who snapped home a wrist shot with 40.3 seconds left in the period to give the Rangers a 3-1 lead—New York's first even-strength goal since Brian Boyle's game-winner in the third period of Game 3.

Kreider, who joined the Rangers after helping Boston College win the NCAA championship earlier this month, has assumed a greater role as the series has progressed. He played less than four minutes in Game 4, but he saw more ice time in Game 5 and has moved up from the Rangers' fourth line to play with Ryan Callahan and Stepan on Monday night.

"It's kind of been a feeling-out process," he said before Game 6. "It's just being more comfortable every single shift. There's so much to learn, and I've been able to take away something every single shift. It's such a fast game at this level, but I've obviously gotten a little more comfortable."

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