NHL players and coaches were split Wednesday on whether changes are needed to video review protocol a day after a major penalty played a dramatic role in San Jose's Game 7 victory over Vegas.

Cody Eakin was assessed a major penalty for cross-checking and injuring Joe Pavelski in the third period, and the Sharks responded by scoring four times on the ensuing five-minute power play to set themselves up to win in overtime. The major was assessed after officials discussed the incident and a bloodied Pavelski was helped off the ice.

The Golden Knights were livid about the call, since Pavelski was not injured by the cross-check. The NHL declined comment Wednesday, but the incident was surely discussed at league headquarters.

The league for five years has debated expanding video review beyond goals. There remains no consensus on potential changes.

"We've been saying that forever," said Carolina coach Rod Brind'Amour, whose team also dealt with a questionable major penalty given to Micheal Ferland in Game 2 against Washington. "The game's too fast. It's hard on refs. I don't know how they do it. I watch it live and sometimes I think the same thing they do, and then I get to sit there and stare at a [tablet] and I can go, 'It's obviously the wrong call.' So, I think they're heading to that. The NHL has got to sit down."

Eakin cross-checked Pavelski off a faceoff, and the Sharks captain bounced off Vegas forward Paul Stastny before his head hit the ice and blood pooled underneath him. Golden Knights coach Gerard Gallant said one of the referees told him it was a cross-check to the face. Series supervisor Don Van Massenhoven afterward said the officials judged it to be a penalty causing a significant injury and deemed it worthy of a major. The Sharks trailed 3-0 at the time and won 5-4 in overtime to advance to the second round.

There have only been two major penalties -- not counting fighting -- so far in the playoffs after 27 in the regular season. They are not subject to video review, which is limited to the puck going in or not on a goal or coach's challenges for goaltender interference or offsides, which have been around the past four seasons.

Vegas' Jonathan Marchessault after the game wondered: "Why don't you have hockey replay or something?" because it drastically altered the game.

The topic was broached as recently as March by league general managers after the missed pass interference in the NFL playoff game between the Saints and Rams prompted changes by the NFL.

Officials are "only allowed to look at coach's challenges," senior executive vice president and director of hockey operations Colin Campbell said at the time. "We asked the managers, 'Should they look at everything?'"

Not everyone is convinced. Capitals defenseman Matt Niskanen said slow-motion replays can distort what happens on the ice at full speed, and teammate Brett Connolly isn't on board with adding to what's already reviewed.

"I think that's kind of the refs' discretion," Connolly said. "I think you've got to let the refs make that call. I don't know. It's tough. You don't want to be reviewing every play."

WASHINGTON -- The Capitals never lost to the Carolina Hurricanes in the regular season, and they never faced a series deficit in the team's first-round matchup -- until it was over.

By the time Hurricanes winger Brock McGinn netted the series-clincher in a 4-3 double-overtime victory in Game 7 on Wednesday, the defending Stanley Cup champion Capitals were out of gas and out of answers.

Carolina advanced to the Eastern Conference semifinals on the Caps' home ice, with a win that most people in the building believed the Canes deserved.

For Washington, the deflation was palpable. Speaking barely above a whisper, the Caps' leaders explained in stunned silence what it was like to exit in the first round of the playoffs after holding two separate two-goal leads on home ice and two separate leads in the series.

"It's disappointing," said Alex Ovechkin, who had a series-high nine points but still has never scored a playoff overtime goal. "It's not where we expected to be. But you know, it's a hard-fought series, and they just ended up being in more plays than we did.

"Obviously, I thought the first two periods we dominated. It was a great series. Lots of toughness, lots of hard plays over there. Two teams fighting to win, and in overtime, you see it's not a pretty goal. The stick hit the whatever, and it goes in. We controlled the game [at first]. But if you get a lead, you have to play kind of careful. It doesn't matter who scored."

According to Elias Sports Bureau, this is the first time in the divisional era (since 1967-68) that no division champion won a playoff series. It's also the first time since 2012 that both Stanley Cup finalists from the previous season failed to win a playoff series.

Braden Holtby, who finished with 38 saves, credited a Canes team that never stopped putting shots on net.

"They kept coming the whole time," Holtby said. "They play a consistent style of hard work, and in the end, that's what beat us. You gotta give credit where credit's due. On paper, you wouldn't expect them to be the team that they are. That's credit to them and their coaching. They play a team game, and that's why the series was so close.

"It was obviously there to take, but ... we just weren't good enough. I gotta come up with more saves in order to win a series, and that's pretty much the bottom line."

Canes first-year head coach Rod Brindamour kept his shifts short, and it resulted in a team that appeared to have more energy than the Capitals in the two extra periods. Caps center Nicklas Backstrom wasn't going to use it as an excuse.

"I think both teams were [gassed]. Players played a lot of minutes," he said. "It's the same thing for everyone."

The series had quite a few turning points. Between Ovechkin getting into a fight for the first time in a decade, T.J. Oshie suffering an injury that knocked him out of the series and a controversial call that would have ended Game 6 and allowed the Caps to advance, there were a host of reasons the defending champs came up short.

But in Wednesday's matchup, Sebastian Aho's short-handed goal in the second period, which came after the Caps led 2-0, was clearly the boost the Canes needed to keep life.

Evgeny Kuznetsov put Washington up 3-1 a few minutes later, but Carolina went on to score the game's last three goals.

"Looking back at that, we need to find a way to shut them down there. Especially when you've got a 3-1 lead. But we gave it to them," Backstrom said.

Backstrom also bemoaned a lost opportunity in the second overtime, when the Capitals failed to produce a single chance during a power play.

"That's another scenario we need to do a better job there," he said. "I mean, at least get a shot on net."

The Capitals were outshot and outhit, and they drew two fewer penalties while winning more faceoffs. Without Oshie and with defenseman Michal Kempny having been ruled out before the series, they were undermanned and ultimately outworked. Coming off the most exciting season in the history of the franchise, the letdown was obvious.

"When the season is over, you understand that. You fight through 82 games, then Game 7, they score one goal, and it's the kind of situation where you're disappointed," Ovechkin said. "It's frustrating."

The Hurricanes finished behind the Metropolitan division champion Capitals in the regular season, but everyone in the Washington locker room acknowledged that Carolina deserved to move on in this year's run to the Stanley Cup.

"They thrive off hard work, and they kept coming the same way that they've played," Holtby said. "Got to give them credit. They earned it."

Toronto Maple Leafs forward Zach Hyman is expected to miss the start of the 2019-20 season following ACL surgery, the team announced Thursday.

The team said Hyman, 26, tore his ACL during the first round against the Boston Bruins, though he appeared in all seven games of the series. Surgery is scheduled for Monday.

He is expected to miss at least six months, which would stretch into the start of next season.

Hyman posted 21 goals and 20 assists during the regular season. He had one goal in the postseason.

As each NHL team is eliminated from the postseason, we'll take a look at why its quest for the Stanley Cup fell short in 2018-19, three keys to its offseason, impact prospects for 2019-20 and a way-too-early prediction for what next season will hold.

What went wrong

All of last summer, we wondered how the Washington Capitals would manage their Stanley Cup hangover. A taxing playoff run (plus some heavy summer celebrating) surely would weigh on this team, which struggled for so many years to get over the hump. That hangover never really set in -- until the first round of the playoffs.

The Capitals brought back nearly everyone from their Cup-winning team, and they made tweaks along the way to get better. Nick Jensen was a solid depth add to the blue line, and perhaps general manager Brian MacLellan's best move was adding Carl Hagelin, who immediately helped a penalty kill often in peril.

Sure, the Capitals had a rough stretch in January, losing seven straight games, but they pulled out of their funk and won their fourth straight Metropolitan Division title. Yet there were cracks in the foundation that revealed themselves against the Carolina Hurricanes -- who, like many underdogs in these playoffs, played with conviction. It was nothing major for the Capitals, but enough little things accumulated to suggest this wasn't going to be the year for another Cup.

Losing top-pairing defenseman Michal Kempny right before the postseason was a blow; Jonas Siegenthaler ended up filling in nicely, but the blue line looked shaky at times, especially the games in Raleigh. Washington was going to have a hard time without T.J. Oshie for a long playoff run; perhaps Devante Smith-Pelly eventually would have added a spark -- both on the ice, where he has a history of playoff heroics, and in the locker room, where he is a popular teammate.

Alex Ovechkin was once again stellar for the Capitals, and so too was Nicklas Backstrom. But Evgeny Kuznetsov (XX points in XX games) appeared off, and that made the second line far less dangerous.

Welcome to Round 2. You'll notice there are no division champions here. That has not happened since the 1967 expansion. It has been that kind of postseason.

Here's what happened in the NHL last night (check out replays of every playoff game on ESPN+) and what to watch for tonight, in today's edition of ESPN Stanley Cup Playoffs Daily:

Jump ahead: Last night's games | Three Stars
Play of the night | Today's games | Social post of the day

About last night ...

Game 7: Carolina Hurricanes 4, Washington Capitals 3 (Hurricanes win series 4-3). What an odd feeling, but perhaps an appropriate one in a postseason this chaotic: the feeling of inevitability as a No. 7 seed takes a No. 2 seed to overtime. The Hurricanes looked determined. They looked fresh. They looked, frankly, dominant. So when Brock McGinn scored 11:05 into the second overtime -- on an assist from Justin "Mr. Game 7" Williams himself -- it felt like the logical conclusion, reputations and regular seasons mattering not.

The Capitals took a 2-0 lead in the first period. Sebastian Aho's short-handed goal in the second cut it to 2-1. It was 3-1 when Teuvo Teravainen snapped a shot past Braden Holtby at 16:37 of the second. Then Jordan Staal tied it at 2:56 of the third. Carolina outshot the Capitals 18-6 in overtime. They earned this win over the defending Stanley Cup champions. And, in turn, they deprived us of the Capitals vs. Barry Trotz matchup we all wanted. What a bunch of jerks ...

Three Stars

1. Brock McGinn, Carolina Hurricanes. McGinn will forever be remembered for his double-overtime goal to end the third-longest Game 7 in NHL history. But it wouldn't have mattered had he not made this diving swipe of his stick when a puck trickled through Petr Mrazek late in the third period. "It's just a reaction there. I saw it kind of squeak through Petr there a bit. I don't know if it had enough steam to cross the line, but I don't think I was taking that chance," McGinn said after the game.

!!!!! pic.twitter.com/i4PwA71kRJ - Cristiano Simonetta (@CMS_74_) April 25, 2019

2. Jordan Staal, Carolina Hurricanes. Staal was acquired from the Penguins in June 2012. At the time, he had appeared in 73 playoff games and won the Stanley Cup in 2009. He didn't appear in another postseason game until Game 1 against the Capitals, and boy did he rise to the occasion: His third-period goal tied Game 7 and gave him three goals and three assists in seven games, including the eventual winner in Game 6.

3. Andre Burakovsky, Washington Capitals. Golf clap for the Capitals forward, who made a great move to put them on the scoreboard at 2:13 of the first period, his first postseason goal since Game 7 of the 2018 Eastern Conference final.

Play of the night

Mr. Game 7 strikes again.

Justin Williams sets up Brock McGinn for the double-overtime winner! �� #StanleyCup>pic.twitter.com/8FNvazirpX - Sportsnet (@Sportsnet) April 25, 2019

What else could it be but McGinn's double-OT series clincher? "What a moment. What a game," McGinn said. "In between periods, we were talking about putting everything on net. In overtime, anything can happen. If you just keep putting it on net, good things will happen."

Dud of the night

Todd Reirden. Yes, the Capitals had the misfortune of losing a key forward (T.J. Oshie) and a key defenseman (Michal Kempny) for this opening-round series. No, Reirden is not the only coach to ever watch his Capitals inexplicably lay an egg on home ice in a Game 7. But the facts are the facts: The defending Stanley Cup champions are out in the first round to a wild-card team, and Barry Trotz swept Sidney Crosby to continue coaching in the playoffs with the New York Islanders. For the Capitals, that's gotta sting.

On the schedule

Columbus Blue Jackets at Boston Bruins, Game 1, 7 p.m. ET

This is a case study in momentum. The Blue Jackets had it when they shocked the Tampa Bay Lightning in the first round, winning seven of eight games to qualify for the playoffs before sweeping the Bolts. But they haven't played since April 16, and no scrimmage can replicate playoff hockey. Boston, meanwhile, played Tuesday, closing out Toronto in seven games.

Dallas Stars at St. Louis Blues, Game 1, 9:30 p.m. ET

This could be the goalie duel of the second round, as Vezina Trophy finalist Ben Bishop takes on rookie sensation Jordan Binnington. The Stars beat the Blues three times in four games in the regular season, with two of those wins coming against Binnington.

Social post of the day

WOOOOOOOOOOOO!!! pic.twitter.com/PNYlL8AGQr - Carolina Hurricanes (@NHLCanes) April 25, 2019

The Canes declare, "We ain't done yet, baby!" (and a bunch of other things that were bleeped out by a goal horn).

Quotable

"I don't know how far that we're going to take this, but I know we're going to give everything we can." -- Hurricanes coach Rod Brind'Amour after his team's Game 7 victory.