RALEIGH, N.C. — By the time Game 7 rolled around, the Rangers and Hurricanes were tired of seeing each other. 

Starting with Max Domi’s late hit on Ryan Lindgren all the way back in Game 3, things had gotten progressively nastier as the two-week series unfolded. During the third period of Saturday’s Game 6, eight total penalties were handed out, with nearly every stoppage featuring a scrum of some kind. 

You can draw a straight line from the end of last season to now with regard to the Rangers’ burgeoning ability to stand up for one another. The organization wanted that characteristic in the group from since it started putting the team together last summer. 

After a series featuring derisive chants aimed at Domi and Tony DeAngelo from the Garden crowd and post-whistle shenanigans from Game 3 on, the Rangers and Hurricanes have developed some bad blood between them. Whether that will carry over into the long term or is merely a product of having seen each other for two weeks straight is a question to be answered in the future. 

The Hurricanes are no one’s idea of a traditional rival for the Rangers. Even when they played out of Hartford, the Devils, Islanders, Flyers and Bruins held that mantle — not the Whalers. Maybe, though, that is changing. 

“I think you play a team seven games, there’s gonna be a little bit of extracurricular stuff after the whistles and all that stuff,” Frank Vatrano said. “Whatever happens on the ice is left on the ice. You just battle between the whistles and try to stay out of that stuff.” 

Access the Rangers beat like never before

Join Post Sports+ for exciting subscriber-only features, including real-time texting with Mollie Walker about the inside buzz on the Rangers.

Headed into Game 7, the Rangers carried an awareness that more conservatism might be necessary. 

“If you gotta eat a punch, you eat a punch,” Andrew Copp said Sunday. “That’s just the fact of the matter. Game 7, there’s no scores to settle other than the one on the scoreboard. We gotta be really disciplined. 

“If it takes eating a punch, whether they get a penalty on it or not, it’s gonna be important that we play five-on-five and don’t give them any extra life by getting sucked into that. We just gotta concentrate on playing our game and winning on the scoreboard.” 

That was not an insinuation that the Rangers would back down from anything. Really, it’s the same focus they kept through the first six games of the series — and that did not stop them from standing up for each other. 

“It’s more important to win the game than take a stupid penalty,” Rangers coach Gerard Gallant said after Game 6. “Let them go into the box if they want to do something silly. I like a tough team, I like a tough game, but this time of year, discipline’s the most important thing.” 

Striking that balance has been no small part of that success. And while they’ve generally avoided taking bad penalties, no one can accuse the Rangers of failing to stand up for each other. Just look at Jacob Trouba’s hit on Max Domi that sparked the Rangers in Game 4 — and led Steven Lorentz to take the instigator penalty that resulted in the Blueshirts taking the lead. 

Even Trouba, who has taken up the mantle of villain during this postseason — and who led the team in penalty minutes in the series going into Game 7 — acknowledged that he couldn’t do anything over the top. 

“You don’t want to put your team at a disadvantage,” Trouba said following the team’s morning skate Monday. “It’s one game, so you can’t really afford to do something like that. I don’t know if they’re gonna be dialed back or not, I’m not sure. But you gotta use your head and be smart.”