Once was the time, and not so very long ago at all, the Rangers had to bribe players to come to play for, and then stay with, their Original Six team in the world’s greatest city.

But those days are history. Blue bloods are willing to take less in order to remain a part of the culture club that has been constructed in midtown Manhattan.

Mats Zuccarello became the latest to spurn his chance to become a free agent and maximize his value on the open market — just as Henrik Lundqvist, Dan Girardi and Marc Staal had done over the preceding 15 months — by signing the Rangers’ take-it-or-leave it (and town) offer of $18 million over four years.

There’s no doubt the Norwegian could have commanded more on the market in July, perhaps a significant amount more when factoring in the difference in taxes from one locale to the next, but the promise of additional riches did not sway No. 36.

“I told [my agents] enough is enough, I’m happy with the offer and it’s important for me to stay here for a long time,” Zuccarello told The Post following Monday’s two-assist performance in the Rangers’ convincing 4-1 victory over the first-overall Predators at the Garden.

“You always heard me say that I wanted to stay. When the offer came, I said yes. This is the right fit for me.”

The Rangers are all in, management and players alike. There is a core group here that has created a winning culture; a core group that has bought in and is dedicated to seeing this through, even if it comes at the cost of some coin, and even if none of the Rangers will be buying clothes at a thrift shop anytime soon.

“Either way, we’re making an awful lot of money, but you want to be happy coming to the rink,” Staal, who re-upped for six years at $34.2 million in January, told The Post. “The group that’s been here the last few years, we feel that we have unfinished business.

“We’ve put in a lot of effort over the years in turning this into an elite team, which is what I think we’ve become. Now we want to win, and we want to win here and we want to win together.”

Keith Yandle, who played a poised and efficient 19:41 paired primarily with Kevin Klein, elevates the Rangers’ skill level by a considerable margin. If Dan Boyle, who had a solid night, finds his game, then the Blueshirts could enter the playoffs with the strongest three-pair defense in the East.

That’s not a bad place to start the quest for the Stanley Cup.

And neither is a top six up front solidified by retaining Zuccarello, an extremely popular player among his teammates and the fan base. There is a measure of stability and serenity within the Rangers’ room.

“I like everything about him: his tenacity, hard work, how he sees the ice, the chemistry he brings to our team and the way he is in the room,” general manager Glen Sather said. “He has been a terrific player for us.”

Sather has always been Zuccarello’s greatest champion within the organization, from the moment he signed the Norwegian as a free agent in 2010, through the time he insisted upon bringing him back from the KHL in 2013 after the winger had spent the lockout in Russia, through this contract negotiation.

Of course, that didn’t stop Sather from threatening to trade Zuccarello if the first-line wing would not sign on the Rangers’ bottom line. No one will ever know whether Slats was bluffing.

“I put it on the market that we were going to trade him,” said the poker-playing GM, who knows never to show his cards. “Whether or not that ever would have happened is another story.”

Ryan Callahan, who not only didn’t want to stay for less but didn’t really want to stay much at all given the confluence of circumstances at last year’s deadline, was traded when everyone thought the GM was bluffing, so who knows?

“I think everyone in here knew what the story was on Saturday,” Staal said, referring to the day that Zuccarello was publicly placed on the market. “I knew what he was going through, but I tried not to talk to him about it.

“You don’t want to give him advice, the decision has to be his and he has to be comfortable with it, but we all knew what was going on. We all knew we were going to make some kind of a trade, and just about everyone was on edge.

“Everyone who comes here, everyone who plays here says the same thing — ‘There’s nothing like playing for the New York Rangers.’ ”

Zuccarello said it and he said it again after putting his money where his mouth had been all year.

“We got the two points, I got to stay four more years,” No. 36 said. “This day couldn’t get much better.”