"I'm in my 10th year. These opportunities, you recognize and appreciate them more and more. You don't take any of them for granted," said Tavares, who played his first nine NHL seasons for the New York Islanders. "You know how hard it is to win …"
He paused to collect his thoughts.
"You're disappointed," he said. "You want to make the most of this, and we didn't. At some point you're going to have to lick your wounds, look yourself in the mirror and find ways to improve and how can we get better, and find a way to break through.
"We have a lot of talent, a lot of youth, a lot of growth still ahead of us, but just to really realize you have to make the most of every chance you get. It's just difficult right now."
Tavares has a point when it comes to the young talent. Matthews, 21, Mitch Marner, 21, William Nylander, 22, and Morgan Rielly, 25, form the youthful foundation of the Maple Leafs.
At the same time, those four players have been eliminated in the Eastern Conference First Round three consecutive seasons; by the Washington Capitals in 2017, and by the Bruins in 2018 and 2019.
At what point will this core learn to take the next step? In their minds, it could have happened this year, it should have happened this year. It didn't.
"We'll have to figure it out," Rielly said. "We're a team that's going to have to go through it together. It's going to take guys coming together, guys buying in, like we did.
"I think we had guys that bought in, for sure. It's not a question of character, it's a question of moving forward together."