It wasn’t so much the glitz and glamour of New York City, but the tradition of the franchise. And it wasn’t so much the look of the Broadway Blueshirt, but where he fit within the group of those set to wear the same sweater.

The decision that Jimmy Vesey made to come to the Rangers was a long one, rooted in his incredibly analytical mind, his quiet nature and his overwhelming desire to be successful. He listened to sales pitches from some of the most attractive franchises in the NHL, and saw all the good opportunities that were out there for a player with such immense talent.

But if it was the big picture of New York that hooked him, it was the small picture of the Rangers that ultimately sold him. This was hockey as a life decision.

“I’ve grown up with hockey my whole life,” the Boston kid said this past week, readying to play his first preseason game in the Rangers sweater on Thursday night against the Devils at the Garden. “I’m from a hockey town, and I definitely wanted to play in a city where they appreciate hockey. I think New York offers that.”

The passion is hard to see right away from the 23-year-old, a reticent smile under a tightly cropped batch of light-brown hair and face that doesn’t seem to have the natural ability to warm itself in the winter (or in the NHL playoffs). But rest assured, the passion is there, albeit in a different, more subdued manner. Vesey’s passion seems to lie in the details.

Just ask his new coach, Alain Vigneault, who was a focal point of the Rangers’ pitch on Aug. 16 in Boston. At midnight that morning, Vesey became an unrestricted free agent, and Vigneault was expecting to travel there hours later as part of a sales team, having to convince the reigning Hobey Baker Award winner to come to the Rangers. Instead, Vigneault was peppered with questions from Vesey’s agents, while the Harvard man sat there quietly, listening and trying to figure Vigneault out.

“His people had some real specific questions about how I work with young players, the type of style we play here in New York, the type of culture that we want to surround our players — young and old,” Vigneault said. “The whole group was real well prepared.”

But so were the Rangers. Next to Vigneault was Chris Drury, who soon after the meeting would be appointed assistant general manager and who was a longtime client of Vesey’s agents, Peter Fish and Peter Donatelli. The Rangers captain from 2008 to 2011, Drury helped Vesey feel comfortable with the whole situation. The same could be said for current Rangers forward and old Boston chum Kevin Hayes, who spent the previous few weeks in Vesey’s ear about how good it is to play for the organization, having taken the same route of spurning the team that drafted him and opting for free agency after college, choosing the Rangers in his search.

“You could tell there was a lot of thought behind their process,” Vigneault said. “They had quite a few options, and at the end of the day, I just answered the questions that were asked.”

Vesey’s situation is becoming more and more common in the NHL — in this case, rejecting the Predators, who took him in the third round of the 2012 draft, No. 66 overall. The first time Vesey thought about coming out of school was after his junior year, but the Crimson had just fallen short of making it to the Frozen Four, and Vesey lost out on the Hobey Baker to friend and fellow Bostonian Jack Eichel, who was then taken by the Sabres with the No. 2 overall pick in the 2015 draft.

“It was just something in his heart that he knew he was not quite ready,” Fish said. “There was some unfinished business.”

So Vesey returned to Harvard, and though he won the Hobey Baker as a senior, his team fell short of the Frozen Four again. But he wanted to be the first in his family to have a Harvard degree, so he stayed, focused on school and focused on enjoying his final month of college.

When it was over, he spoke to Fish and Donatelli, and by then, the idea of free agency — of being able to pick just about any team in the NHL to play for — was too enticing. He wanted to stay in the Northeast to be close enough to his family, so when Nashville was deemed out, their GM, David Poile, made some cutting public comments and traded his rights to the Sabres for a third-round pick. But it was never about disrespecting the Predators or the Sabres.

“Even if it had been the Rangers that traded for him,” Fish said, “he was going to see it through.”

When Vesey entered the free-agent market, he had compiled a list, and those teams came a-calling. The Maple Leafs came, with Vesey’s dad already an employee, working as a scout. The hometown Bruins had their say, as did the resurgent Devils. The Islanders even sent star center John Tavares to Boston in hopes of persuading Vesey to come to Brooklyn.

But the Rangers needed no more than their management team and coaches, the tradition of their franchise, the opportunity on their roster and the allure of their city.

“When you’re a young kid, and you have all these factors and things thrown at you, one of the biggest things is where you’re actually going to be living for the next three, four, five years,” Fish said. “To say that you have a chance to live in New York City and everything it offers — from hockey, outside of hockey, with the connections that Jimmy will probably have from Harvard, marketing opportunities — there are a lot of things. I don’t want to underestimate how important all that stuff was.”

On the night of Aug. 18, Vesey spoke to his parents, saying he thought he was going to choose the Rangers. He woke up the next day, worked out, then called Fish to tell him the news. He then called GM Jeff Gorton, who was ecstatic just seeing the Boston area code on the caller ID.

“When he said, ‘Hi, it’s Jimmy Vesey. I made my decision, and I’d like to come to New York,’ I can’t remember exactly what I did, but I probably had a pretty exciting comeback for him,” Gorton said. “Probably can’t say it in public.”

In the end, it’s still about the hockey for Vesey. That’s what he asked Vigneault about, and that’s what he needed to supplement all that surrounds playing for the Rangers. He’s not a shoo-in to make the team out of training camp, but he has a great shot to be standing on the Garden blueline for the home opener on Oct. 13 against the Islanders.

Asked if he thinks he can play at this level, Vesey succinctly said, “Yeah, I think I can.” And that was that.

Jimmy Vesey made his decision, and now comes the hard part: proving it was the right one.